"Too Much Orange Blossom" Sensed Communities, Gastro-nationalism And The Great British Bake Off
CUCR Seminar Series: 18th Nov 1pm-2pm, RHB 356
by Emma Jackson
15 November 2022
It has been a long time since we had in-person CUCR events. I’m very glad to kick off our seminar series with a conversation between two thinkers with a long association with the CUCR: Professor Anamik Saha (University of Leeds) and Dr Alex Rhys-Taylor. (Goldsmiths) Anamik Saha has a longstanding interest in the production of cultural forms, ‘diversity’ and the cultural industry. Alex-Rhys Taylor specialises in the multisensory experience of space and new forms of association and exclusion. Bringing the two of them together on the subject of the GBBO will make for a fascinating conversation. And one in which participants will be invited to contribute too. Alex describes the session thus:
‘In this seminar we will reflect on the ways in which televisual cookery events relate to the sensuous experience of identity and community. In particular, looking at the Great British Bake-off we will consider the extent to which the televisual event affords the experience of a 'sensed community' while attempting to delimit the sensory order of 'national taste'. Key concepts, examples and their implications will be outlined, before participants are asked for their own reflections on the ways in which cookery shows and books inform their own senses of identity and belonging.’
Goldsmiths calendar
Dr Emma Jackson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Dr Alex Rhys Taylor is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Anamik Saha is Professor of Race and Media at the University of Leeds.
︎ Image credit: Gordonplant CC2.0
