Seminar - May 2021
Science, Morality and Orthorexia: Rethinking Food Ethics and Good Eating
Join us for a special panel discussion chaired by Dr Michelle Phillipov (University of Adelaide).
Prof John Coveney (Flinders University) - The Science and Spirituality of Nutrition
Using Foucault’s work on governmentality it will be shown that ideas embedded in nutrition emerged from both scientific knowledges which sought to understand and manage the eating habits of populations, and from moral issues which problematise individual food choices. The result is a knowledge of food that can be understood as a ‘discipline’ in two senses: firstly as field of scientific endeavour and secondly as a form of moral correction.
Prof Lesa Scholl (University of Adelaide/University of Exeter) - Nineteenth-Century Orthorexia? Roman Catholicism and Nutrition in late-Victorian Britain
This presentation will use the connection between prominent Roman Catholic poet, journalist and suffragist Alice Meynell (1847-1922) and American physician Dr Thomas Low Nichols to examine the orthorexic tendencies of extreme dieting and the ways in which such practices were entrenched in nineteenth-century culture through theological and scientific models.
Prof Rachel Ankeny (University of Adelaide) - When Does Eating Ethically Go Too Far?
I give examples from our research and from Australian media coverage of ethical eating to explore how and when these ethical drivers can turn into unhealthy motivators, and how they can result in making food decision-making overwhelming and difficult for many consumers.
When: Thursday, 27th May 2021, 11 AM - 12:30 PM
Where: Ira Raymond Exhibition Room, Barr Smith Library
Dr Michelle Phillipov is a Senior Lecturer in Media at the University of Adelaide. Her research explores how media interest in food shapes public debate, media and food industry practices, and contemporary consumer politics.
Prof John Coveney is Professor of Global Food, Culture and Health in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University. He has research and education interests in public health nutrition; history of food and health; food policy; and social and cultural factors that influence food patterns and food intake.
Prof Lesa Scholl is Head of Kathleen Lumley College, the postgraduate college of the University of Adelaide. Her interdisciplinary research engages with food studies, theology, nineteenth-century literature and medical humanities. She is an honorary visiting professor in the College of Humanities at the University of Exeter and a research fellow of the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University.
Prof Rachel Ankeny is a Professor of History and Philosophy and Deputy Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Adelaide. Her areas of expertise cross three fields: food studies, history/philosophy of science, and bioethics and science policy.