Italian Food and Foodways (Panel / In-Person)


Special Session
Italian / Film and Media Studies

Irene Hatzopoulos (University of California - Riverside)
iren@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

Food inside and outside of Italy has long served as a catalyst to discuss, criticize, and create systems of power

In this vein, we invite presentations exploring PAMLA's 2026 theme of “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict”, looking at Italian and Italian American Food through a social cultural lens focusing on power and power dynamics.

Papers exploring literature, cinema, (social) media, pedagogy are encouraged.
Food inside and outside of Italy has long served as a catalyst to discuss, criticize, and create systems of power

In this vein, we invite presentations exploring PAMLA's 2026 theme of “Our Ruling Classes: Culture, Power, Conflict”, looking at Italian and Italian American Food through a social cultural lens focusing on power and power dynamics.

Papers exploring literature, cinema, (social) media, pedagogy are encouraged.

Topics can include:

•food of migration/migrants food memories in diaspora communities
•food traditions and their evolutions food and community
•food and isolation
•foodways and how they determine belonging
•food scarcity and rationing during war-time
•food economics