Wednesday, April 21, 2021 @ 6:00 pm-8:00 pm

Lecture

Professor Sami Zubaida on ‘Reflections on Culinary Iraq’ – Chaired by Dr Paul Collins

Childhood and boyhood memoir of growing up in a Jewish household in Baghdad in the 1940s and early 50s, with particular reference to food and drink. The shape of the house and the kitchen, the kitchen equipment, the division of labour. Shopping, meal sequence, days of the week and seasons, weekends (Sabbath) and festivals, entertaining and conviviality. These domestic aspects will then be placed in the context of a culinary map of Iraq, regions, communities, and classes, as well as the broader Middle East.

Sami Zubaida: Born and schooled in Baghdad. Further schooling and higher education in England, then an academic career. Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London, Fellow of Birkbeck College, Professorial Research Associate of the Food Studies Centre, at SOAS. He has held visiting positions in Cairo, Istanbul, Beirut, Aix-en-Provence, Paris, Berkley CA and NYU, written and lectured widely on themes of religion, culture, law and politics in the Middle East, with particular attention to Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. His other work is on food history and culture. Books: Islam, the People and the State: Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East (3rd edition 2009; translated in Arabic, Hebrew, Italian and Turkish); A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (edited, with R Tapper, 2nd edition 2000; translated in Arabic and Turkish); Law and Power in the Islamic World (2003; translated in Arabic, Danish and Turkish) and Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East (2011); Food, Politics and Society: Social Theory and the Modern Food System, with Alex Colas, Jason Edwards and Jane Levi, (2018).