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Invites you to our annual Winter Quarter Theme:
Food and Nurturance
“Hunger, Craving, and Eating More: New Scholarship in Food Studies”
Friday, February 20, 2026
11:00 a.m. Author’s Conversation HIB 100
12:00 p.m. Reception HG Patio
Speakers
Dana Simmons, Associate Professor of Society, Environment and Health Equity, University of California, Riverside, and author of On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America, from Starvation to Ozempic (University of California Press, 2025)
Robert Ji-Song Ku, Managing Editor of Foundations and Futures: Asian American and Pacific Islander Multimedia Textbook of UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, and co-editor of Eating More Asian America: A Food Studies Reader (New York University Press, 2025)
Moderator
Catherine Z. Sameh, Associate Professor and Chair, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and author of Axis of Hope: Iranian Women’s Rights Activism across Borders (University of Washington Press, 2019)
Co-sponsors
UCI Humanities Center, Humanities Core, Environmental Humanities. and Asian American Studies
What sustains our bodies and our well being?
What does food mean and symbolize for us?
With whom do we eat and commune?
What rituals do we perform while eating and practicing care?
How do these meanings and practices travel across borders?
Whose labor is expended in order for us to eat and maintain our health?
What impact do we have on our environment and our communities in order to feed and nurture ourselves?
The UCI Humanities Center will explore these questions through our annual theme of “Food and Nurturance” for the 2025-2026 academic year.