Call for Papers: Battlefields and Homefronts: An Anthology of Food and Warfare

Editor: Justin Nordstrom

Closing date for abstract submissions: 30 March 2019

 

Call for Papers:
Battlefields and Homefronts: An Anthology of Food and Warfare, 1500-Present
University of Arkansas Press

 

“War is probably the single most powerful instrument of dietary change in human experience.”
Sydney Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom

Battlefields and Homefronts: Historical Perspectives on Food and Warfare from 1500 to the Present is a forthcoming anthology to be published by the University of Arkansas Press as part of its Food and Foodways Series. This anthology will bring together historians writing across a diverse variety of sub-fields and international perspectives.  While intentionally broad in scope, the book’s unifying theme would be how soldiers, civilians, and communities used food (and its absence, deprivation and hunger,) as both a weapon of war and as a unifying force in establishing governmental control and cultural cohesion during times of conflict. 

Possible topics on food and warfare would include:

• Food and hunger on the battlefield, and the role of food in shaping military decisions and outcomes
• Food and mobilization, the intersection of civilian production and conservation on one hand and military exigency on the other
• Technologies in food production, transport, storage, and the militarization of food through industrialization
• Foodways and government policy in wartime—how food security and/or scarcity has shaped political and social action (including food’s rhetorical role in government propaganda)
• The role of food in wartime memory and memorialization and/or the depiction of war in popular culture
• Food as a weapon of war—how has starvation, hunger, and deprivation been used (politically, militarily, socially) during conflict and its aftermath
• Food and international outreach—the politics and social impact of food aid during wartime
• Gender and domesticity in wartime
• Warfare, colonization, and conflicts surrounding the foodways of natives and colonizers

This anthology will pay specific attention to global questions of food and warfare, and is particularly interested in contributions focusing outside of Europe and North America, examining international facets and interdisciplinary perspectives on food history. 

Questions and proposals can be sent to Justin Nordstrom at jan13@psu.edu (Please include the phrase “Battlefields and Homefronts” in subject line)

Abstracts/Proposals (no longer than 300 words) Due: March 30, 2019 [Contributors will be notified by April 30 if their submission is accepted into the anthology]

Chapters (no longer than 6,000 words) Due: Oct 1, 2019

 

Source: H-Utopia