American Friends of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery Order your Oxford Symposium 2008 apron now

Prizes and Grants

The Oxford Symposium supports a number of important prizes and grants. Click here for further information.

Welcome to the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery

The Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery is an educational charity. Its prime objective is to foster and encourage exploration of food history as a serious topic of research, and the purpose of its charitable status is to allow it to raise funds to sponsor endeavours in this field.

Its key activity is an annual conference on food history. This event - the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery - brings together writers, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, scientists, chefs and others who specialise in the study of food in history, its place in contemporary societies, and related scientific developments. It is attended each year by up to 200 people from all over the world, providing a meeting place for anyone interested in the issues raised by the theme selected for discussion.

The next Oxford Symposium will take place at St Catz on 12-14 September 2008. The Topic is Vegetables. Simon Schama has provisionally agreed to speak at the 2008 Symposium. Biodiversity expert James Godfrey, Chairman of the International Potato Centre, will also deliver a plenary address.

26/5/08 2008 Proposals The Editorial Committee of the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery Trust is pleased to announce the authors invited to submit a paper for the 2008 Symposium. To download the 2008 proposal abstracts please click here.

For the Draft Programme for the 2008 Oxford Symposium
please click here.

2008 Oxford Symposium: The American Friends of the Oxford Symposium invite you to a Celebration of Cricket and Traditional English Picnic. For More details click here.

To download a Registration Form please click here.

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The 2009 Oxford's Symposium’s dates are 11-13 September. The Topic for 2009 is Food and Language.

In 2010 the Oxford Symposium will change to a July date. The 2010 Oxford Symposium's dates are 9-11 July. The topic will be Cured, Smoked, and Fermented Foods.

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Calls for papers:

Tasting histories: Food and Drink Cultures through the Ages - a research symposium, graduate workshop and public conference February 27-March 1, 2009 Robert Mondavi Institute, University of California, Davis, California
We are interested in receiving papers that explore critical issues in food and drink production and consumption that relate to the body and that deploy a world historical lens. For further information click here.

CFP:  Food, Culture, and the Law - a call for papers
The field of food studies has grown enormously over the last decade, as evidenced in part by the steadily increasing number of academics and professionals in the humanities, social and nutrition sciences, culinary arts, and hospitality studies who have become engaged in cross-disciplinary conversations about food.  Operating in tandem with the explosion of popular fascination with food, these conversations have been joined of late by academics, attorneys, and activists who are particularly concerned with the question of how our relationship to food is, has been, and should be, mediated through law.  In response to this emerging area of inquiry, we are soliciting both conference papers and publishable essays that integrate multidisciplinary scholarship in food studies with legal scholarship related to food in existing fields such as agricultural, constitutional, criminal, administrative, tort, intellectual property, and international trade law. For further information click here.