Programme

1. Adriana Bebiano (CES): Fishan' chips, kefir, tea, wine or beer: class, nation and sexual difference in English language crime fiction

Abstract: Representations of food in fiction are very diverse and polysemic. Realist novels - the mode in which crime fiction is set - allow us to observe continuities and changes in social practices related to issues of national identity, sexual identity and social class. This equation also includes issues concerning immigrant communities and their impact on the construction of new food heritages.

In contemporary English-language detective fiction these dimensions are particularly evident: what the characters consume contributes to the signification of their national, class, and sexual identity, from the consumption of fishan'chips and beer - national, masculine, and “working-class” - to grilled fish and a glass of wine, characteristic of a cosmopolitan middle class. Food - and beverages, in particular - are still markers of sexual identity, and their presence in detective novels has, in recent decades, transformed configurations of femininity in the West.

In this talk, I will draw on four crime novels published in 2020 – with plots set in urban spaces in Ireland, Scotland, England and the United States - to analyse and discuss these dynamics.

2. Isabel Noronha (Director): Na Dobra da Capulana

Abstract: The documentary "Na Dobra da Capulana", by Camilo de Sousa and Isabel Noronha, "is a journey into the enchanted 'kingdom' of the capulana”, “which will reveal a typically female universe through situations and narratives of a group of women who, like all Mozambican women, use the capulana for various purposes and attribute various meanings to it".

Throughout 30 minutes, the documentary intends to "discover the meaning of being a woman in different times, linked together by the traces, colours, knowledges, flavours, words and names of each capulana, in the fold of which hides a unique, singular story".

Na dobra da capulana (2014). Directed by Camilo de Souza and Isabel Noronha, 2014, 30min. Film available HERE
 

Moderator: Maria Paula Meneses (CES)