This is the final installment of "Power and Pleasure at the Dinner Table." Find part 1, An Invitation, part 2, The Party Table, and part 3, The Community Table, in previous posts. I intuitively feel the pull of how eating together can be pleasurable, a site of connection. Yet I suspect many of us likely have examples of exclusion when it comes to sharing food with others. Sometimes feelings of exclusion indicate opportunities for new experiences, such as being an omnivore at a vegan potluck. … [Read more...]
The Community Table
This is the third installment of "Power and Pleasure at the Dinner Table." Find part 1, An Invitation, and part 2, The Party Table, in previous posts. Community happens around tables: we play puzzles, games, and music, share meals, plan camping trips or political actions. Tables are sites where people celebrate or grieve together. The political thinker Hannah Arendt describes human togetherness by using a table as a metaphor. You may recognize Arendt’s name. She is perhaps best known for … [Read more...]
The Party Table
This is the second installment of "Power and Pleasure at the Dinner Table." Click here to find part 1, "An Invitation." Our first stop is a party table, in Athens around 400ish BCE, as described in Plato’s dialogue Symposium.[1] Socrates, perhaps the quintessential philosopher, and friends are celebrating the poet Agathon, who has won a contest as part of the Lenaian Festival. The friends are drunk. Although I refer to this scene as ‘a dinner party,’ the term “symposium” better translates to … [Read more...]
An Invitation to Power and Pleasure at the Dinner Table
Café-Philo Kitchener was founded by Hannah Gardiner in 2020 with the aim of promoting openness, tolerance, and critical thought within the local community. This summer,Café-Philo Kitchener hosted a Food/Sex/Philosophy fest to collectively explore the age-old intersection of food & sex in the cultural imagination. I was delighted to participate in the Food/Sex/Philosophy fest by giving a talk called "Power and Pleasure at the Dinner Table." Connections between embodiment, pleasure, … [Read more...]
Home is where the food is
Last month I attended a "Decolonized Feast," an event organized by Emilio Rojos, the Live Arts Bard Biennial Artist in Residence, and Rebecca Yoshino, the Bard Farm Coordinator. The Feast was an opportunity to enjoy food harvested from the Bard Farm; we shared tamales, various salsas and hot sauces, roasted butternut squash with a maple syrup glaze, cranberry-mushroom wild rice, and hibiscus tea. Attendees also explored Rojos' land-art installation, Naturalized Borders (to Gloria). Rojos and … [Read more...]