Food and Ritual:
Ancient Practices and Modern Perspectives
Corpus Christi College
19 – 21 March 2014
Wednesday 19th March 2014
4.00 – 6.00 pm
Tea, check-in, registration
Key note address (Chair: Fred Naiden)
6.00 – 7.30 pm
Jan Bremmer (Groningen),
“The beginning, middle and end of sacrifice”
7.30 pm
Wine Reception
Thursday 20th March 2014
Panel I: Ancient Mesopotamia (Chair: Christopher Metcalf)
9.00 – 10.00 am
Walther Sallaberger (Munich),
“After the sacrifice: The distribution of food offerings
in ancient Mesopotamia”
10.00 – 11.00 am
Frances Reynolds (Oxford),
“The Edible Body: Conceptions of the Divine in
Assyria and Babylonia”
11:00 – 11:30 am
Coffee
Panel II: Judaism
11.30 – 12:30 am
Laura Feldt (Denmark),
“Blood, Bread, and Bitter Herbs: food practices,
narrative context, and religious identity in the Hebrew
Bible Pesach Ritual”
12.30 – 1:30 am
Francesca Stavrakopoulou (Exeter),
“The Body Modified and Transformed: On Ritual Food
and the Materiality of Religion in the Hebrew Bible”
1:30 – 3:00 pm
Lunch
Panel III: Ancient Greece and Rome (Chair: Robert Parker)
3.00 – 4.00 pm
Nicholas Purcell (Oxford),
"Priestly commensality and the boundaries of religious
behaviour: the case of the Roman cena aditialis"
4.00 – 5.00 pm
5.00 – 5.30 pm
Fred Naiden (UNC/Chapel Hill),
“Criminal Acts of Sacrifice”
Coffee
Panel IV: PG presentations (Chair: Sondra Hausner)
• 5:30 – 6:30 pm
Marek Sullivan, (Oxford, Oriental Studies):
“Mindful Tofu: Food Ethics in the Plum Village Tradition”
Priya Sury (Oxford):
“What is the place of food in the Ayurvedic tradition?: An analysis of the Caraca
Samhita and Sushruta Samhita (sections on food prescriptions) and their practical
implications for epidemic obesity?”
Laura Frude (Bristol)
7.00 pm
Dinner
Friday 21st March 2014
Panel V: Food Rituals in S and SE Asia - Part I (Chair: David Gellner)
9.00 – 10:00 am
Astrid Zotter (Heidelberg),
“Divine dishes and human gods: Food and food
transactions in Nepalese marriage rituals”
10.00 – 11:00 am
Barbara Schuler (Hamburg),
“Food and Emotion in Ritual: Some Observations”
11:00 – 11:30 am
Coffee
Panel VI: Food Rituals in S and SE Asia - Part II (Chair: Ulrike Roesler)
11.30 – 12.30 pm
Patrice Ladwig (Max-Planck Institute Halle),
“Ritual economies, sticky rice and the candy-bar flood.
Food in Lao Buddhist monasteries between vinaya and
modern practices”
Round table discussion (Chairs: Sarah Hitch and Rita Langer)
12.30 – 1.30 pm
All participants: Conclusions
1:30 pm
Lunch and finish