(AGENPARL) – Sat 22 November 2025 DEPARTMENT
OF EXCELLENCE
Department of
Linguistics and
Comparative
Cultural Studies
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
“coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkins…”:
Eating Indoors and Outdoors in Children’s Literature
27-28 November 2025
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Ca’ Bernardo, Sala B
Calle Bernardo – Dorsoduro 3199 Venezia (VE)
Thursday, November 27th
9.15-10.30
Keynote Speaker – VANESSA JOOSEN
(University of Antwerp): To Bite or Not
To Bite? Food in Fairy Tales through the
Lens of Age Studies
Chair: Alessandro Cabiati (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice)
Recipes
RACHELE S. BASSAN (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice) – Heritage
Children’s Literature: Communal Eating
in Jill Barklem’s First Brambly Hedge
Series (1980)
STEFANIA TONDO (Suor Orsola
Benincasa University) – The Adventures
of Food Inside and Outside Wonderland
Chair: Laura Tosi (Ca’ Foscari University
of Venice)
10.30-11.00 COFFEE BREAK
16.00-16.30 COFFEE BREAK
11.00-12.30
FOOD ON THE GO:
CHANGING PLACES
PAUL VENZO (Deakin University) – From
Magic Pudding to Bush Tucker: The
Changing Location of Food Cultures in
Australian Children’s Literature
ANNA TRAVAGLIATI (Université
Clermont Auvergne)- Eating Spaces and
Gender Issues in Contemporary French
Picturebooks: The Case of the
Publishing House “L’Agrume”
VICKY TOPOUZA & DIMITRIOS
GOULIS (Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki) – Between Ice Cream and
Mystery: Food, Place, and Identity in
Children’s Detective Fiction
Chair: Alessandro Cabiati (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice)
16.30-18.00
SMART COOKIES:
PERFORMING AND TELLING FOOD
EIVIND KARLSSON (Oslo Metropolitan
University) – Pancake Performance: The
Empowering of Food
SABINE PLANKA (Martin Opitz Library)
& CORINA LÖWE (Linnaeus University)
– Picnic as Performance: The Function
of Picnics in Children’s and Young Adult
Literature
PABLO A MARCA (Brown University) Feasting Across Frames: Giambattista
Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti and (Story)
Telling Food
Chair: Rachele S. Bassan (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice)
12.30-14.30 LUNCH BREAK
Friday, November 28th
9.00-9.15
Welcome remarks
14.30-16.00
MY CUP OF TEA:
NOSTALGIC EATING
ANGELA YANNICOPOULOU (National
and Kapodistrian University of Athens)
– Away from Home: Diasporic Memory
and Nostalgia in Picturebooks with
19.30 CONFERENCE DINNER
9.00-10.30
Keynote Speaker – DIANE PURKISS
(University of Oxford): Food Joy and
Food Terror: The Child Eating Fantasy in
England
Chair: Laura Tosi (Ca’ Foscari University
of Venice)
10.30-11.00 COFFEE BREAK
11.00-12.30
SOUR GRAPES:
SPACES OF FOOD CONTROL
CHANG HASHEMINEZHAD-LI
(University of Padua) – The Taste of
Authoritarian: How Do Food Spaces
Function as Sites of Control and
Resistance in Picturebooks?
CAROLINA C. GRANINI (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice) – Banquets of
Control: Eating Spaces in Young Adult
Dystopias
ANITA KONRAD (University College
of Teacher Education Tyrol) – Magical
Grandmothers in Fruit Trees &
Vegetable Tyrants from the Cellar:
Spatial Dimensions and Food
References in Postwar Austrian
Children’s Literature
Chair: Laura Tosi (Ca’ Foscari University
of Venice)
12.30-14.00 LUNCH BREAK
14.00-14.30
Once upon a Taste: 3-Michelin-star Chef
Alajmo on Childhood and the Language
of Food (RECORDED INTERVIEW)
Massimiliano Alajmo (Le Calandre)
14.30-16.00
FOOD AGAINST THE GRAIN:
UNDISCIPLINED EATING
ANNA KÉRCHY (University of Szeged)
– Sweet Sites of Subversion: From the
Goblin Market to the Chocolate Factory:
Gastronomic Heterotopias, Body
Horror, and Un/Ethical Consumption in
Children’s Literature
LEA BACHMANN (University of
Cologne) – Secret Eating and Starving:
The Intersection of Space and Eating
Disorders in Paperweight (2017)
DUBRAVKA ZIMA (University of
Zagreb) – On Politics and Ethics of Food
in Fairy Tales
Chair: Alessandro Cabiati (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice)
16.00-16.15 BREAK
16.15-17.45
KNOWING YOUR ONIONS:
FORAGING SPACES
DANIELA CESIRI (Ca’ Foscari University
of Venice) – Narrating In- and Outdoor
Eating to Pre-School Children: A
Multimodal Discourse Analysis of
Illustrated Children’s Books
SHINO SUGIMURA (Kyoritsu Women’s
University) – A Study Comparing the
Outdoor Foraging Scenes in The Hunger
Games and Golden Kamui
ASTRID XIAO (Heidelberg University) Edible Lessons: Moral Topographies of
Food in Chinese Children’s Comics
Chair: Carolina C. Granini (Ca’ Foscari
University of Venice)
17.45-18.00
CLOSING REMARKS
18.45-20.00 APERITIVO
Scientific and organising committee
Laura Tosi
Alessandro Cabiati
Rachele S. Bassan
Carolina C. Granini c
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice