Topic: Re-framing European gastronomy Legacy through Innovation, Sustainability and Heritage (RELISH), a 36-month project funded by Horizon Europe Pillar II, Cluster 4 on Cultural Heritage 2024

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Call dates: early/mid December (open), closing after 30 days

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Start date: February 1, 2025

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Where: University of Milan, Department of Philosophy

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Areas of specialization and competence: philosophy of food (broadly understood), food studies, core areas of analytic philosophy (including: analytic metaphysics and ontology, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science)

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Responsibilities: the successful candidates are expected to collaborate with Prof. Andrea Borghini and oversee coordinating the more theoretical and philosophical aspects of RELISH. A disposition to work collaboratively and in teams is key. Ability to produce high-level research in food and philosophy is expected, alongside the capacity to effectively communicate research results to colleagues across disciplines and to put them into use. 

Contact person: please direct questions to Andrea Borghini (andrea.borghini@unimi.it)

 

Description

A significant part of Europe’s abundant and priceless cultural heritage manifests around the world through its rich food traditions. Yet, as Europe’s own food consumption is becoming increasingly global, it is vital to understand how this change in food practice leads to a loss of sense of place and identity. While the connection that exists between food and cultural identity is generally acknowledged, there is no real awareness about how this link can and should be fostered and sustained.

The inspiration for RELISH emerges from the discipline of Philosophy of Food and its ontology for recipes, which articulates how culinary recipes establish lasting links between food discourses and foodways to create and to cement common cultural heritage. It conceives recipes as social artifacts that depend on a process of collective identification. Without this recognition, there can be no cultural transmission. RELISH believes in the importance of creating a cultural framework from which this recognition of traditional recipes can take place to ensure the generational transmission of EU culinary heritage.

The project offers a pathway to put into practice culinary recipes and food culture as cultural and digital tools to strengthen EU's common cultural heritage. Through an innovative and systematic approach to the understanding and use of traditional EU recipes via digital and AI-powered technology, RELISH embarks on the production of a visual and verbal food storytelling web platform that aims to mediate social cohesion, reinforce EU cultural heritage transmission at home and abroad through education and public engagement, while addressing sustainable practices in the EU hospitality sector.

Successful candidates will work alongside Prof. Andrea Borghini as well as colleagues in the Culinary Mind network. They will oversee coordinating the more theoretical and philosophical aspects of RELISH. A disposition to work collaboratively and in teams is key. Ability to produce high-level research in food and philosophy is expected, alongside the capacity to effectively communicate research results to colleagues across disciplines and to put them into use.

Candidates should hold or be near completion of a PhD in relevant areas, including: Philosophy, Food Studies, Linguistics, the Humanities. Candidates should have a strong research agenda concerned with the cultural or theoretical study of food as well as experience with project management and event planning. Experience in public or digital humanities is welcome but not required.

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