CFP: IACLALS Annual Conference on Food and Food Cultures in the Global South: Aesthetics, Intersections and Mediations 12–14 February (Offline) 2026, co-hosted by Bangalore University

Food and Food Cultures in the Global South: Aesthetics, Intersections and Mediations

12–14 February 2026

co-hosted by

The Department of English, Bangalore University, Jnanabharathi Campus, Bengaluru-560056

Food and food cultures serve as crucial sites for performance, story-telling, memorialization, identitarian politics, ritualistic practice and assertions of power and cultural capital. They also facilitate a fertile field of critical inquiry in terms of intergenerational trauma, ecological ethics, colonial and postcolonial structures and resistance, migration and connectivity. The multiple ways of thinking, preparing and consuming food enable one to understand it as a site mediating complex social relationships and self-representation in diverse cultural and literary texts and contexts.

Food and foodways symbolize types of cultural capital which in turn influences larger concerns of identity and identity formation. Food is part of rituals and ceremonies that span almost all occasions of human existence – whether as offering or for consumption. Processes of resistance and resilience also find reflection in multiple food representations. Within an expanding food literacy, both public and domestic spaces highlight the historical politics of food and eating. The realpolitik of food production narrates tales of exploitation, appropriation and marginalization.

Understanding gastro semantics, culinary cosmopolitanism and gastro-tourism enables both informed understanding and a rethinking of one’s relationship with food at local and global levels. Theorizing food requires an interdisciplinary approach involving ethnographic, historical, geographical, political, literary, aesthetic, gender, ethnic, agricultural, economic, nutrition and cultural studies. Food activism focuses on seed sovereignty, farmers’ markets, and eating disorders. An epistemology of embodiment and hierarchy can be constructed in the politics of who cooks, who serves and who eats.

Sub-ThemesDigital gastronomy and food aesthetics

Food practices: rituals, ceremonies and offerings

Food, faith and taboo: religious laws and transgressions

Gastronomic and taste philosophies

Gastro-feminism and masculinities: gender, food and culture

Disability and Food practices

Food and food culture in cinema, literature and art

Culinary colonialism and the decolonial palate

Food as semiotic system

Kitchen as archive

Kitchen as domestic, commercial, trans or queer performative space

Carnivalesque food and food practices

Food sovereignty: hunger, memory, famine, starvation

Indigenous foodways

Food writing: culinary histories, recipes, menus

Food and human rights

Food distribution and public health

Food activism and advocacy

Urban food practices, diet and nutrition

Food porn and food exotica

Submission GuidelinesAbstracts of 250–300 words with a bio-note of no more than 50 words may be submitted using the submission link by 18th September 2025.

Acceptances will be conveyed by 18th October 2025.

Abstract submission link: https://forms.gle/nJ3eNEMGZyCdnK8i7

CDN Prize 2026

If you wish to participate in the “C.D. Narasimhaiah Prize” for the Best Paper Presented at an Annual Conference, kindly type “Submission for CDN Prize” in the subject line of the email when you send the full paper to iaclalsbuconference2026@gmail.com.

Last date for submission of complete papers: 24th November 2025

For details: https://iaclals.in/cdn-prize/

MMM Prize 2026

IACLALS also announces the next edition of the “Meenakshi Mukherjee Memorial Prize” for the Best Academic Paper published by a member during the previous two years (2024 & 2025).

Submission link: https://forms.gle/bHbF7ZWyM1yWnHoV8

Last date for submission: 18th September 2025

For guidelines: https://iaclals.in/mmm-prize/

Membership

The conference is open only to members of IACLALS. Participants are encouraged to become members before sending abstracts.3-Year Membership: Rs. 1500

Life Membership: Rs. 5000

Annual Membership for Students/Research Scholars: Rs. 1000 (Postgraduate level and above)

For details, contact the Treasurer at: treasurer.iaclals@gmail.com

Registration FeeFaculty: Rs. 3500/-

Research Scholars: Rs. 2500/-

Includes: Lunch, refreshments on conference days, and conference kit.

Mode of payment: To be announced.

Registration dates: 15th November – 15th December 2025

Contact

For all conference-related queries: iaclalsbuconference2026@gmail.com

Accommodation

Participants will make their own arrangements. A list of nearby hotels, guest houses, and homestays will be provided later.

About the Department of English, Bangalore University

Established in 1964, Bangalore University is one of the most prestigious public state universities in Karnataka, with NAAC accreditation of grade A++ (2023) and NIRF ranking of #81 under the ‘University’ category. The Department of English, with an illustrious history, continues to strive for academic excellence, interdisciplinarity, and social responsibility.

Important DatesSubmission of Abstracts: 18th September 2025

Confirmation of Acceptance: 18th October 2025

MMM Prize Submission: 18th September 2025

CDN Prize Submission: 24th November 2025

Receipt of Complete Papers: 31st December 2025

#CFP: Mapping #Body #Space Continuum in #Urbanscapes

 

Mapping Body Space Continuum in Urbanscapes

deadline for submissions: 

March 15, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies

contact email: editors@ellids.com

Space is not defined objectively, but in relation to bodies, as it is a manifestation of their needs, intentions, and desires. It is not a container in which objects exist but is intertwined with the body’s orientation in the world and its movements within the space. Human body, therefore, is at the centre of all spaces, which are more than a geometrical concept in abstraction. Individual bodies apprehend and appropriate space differently and give meaning to embedded systems and institutions through established and evolving associations. Any assumption of personalised space, whether private or public, is embedded with historical, cultural, and social meanings which help curate embodied experiences. This is dependent on the dynamics of cultural inclusion and exclusion. The impulse of action within this dynamic is the basis of spatiality, that is, the human aspect of space, as it is constructed and occupied according to the social identity and purposiveness of particular bodies. 

The inscribed role of the human body in consciously forming the spaces within a city shapes their social and political order, which assimilates the individual within larger establishments while giving one the freedom to express one’s individuality. The emotional attachment of individual bodies to personalised urban spaces and collective embodied memory consigns values and functions to a space. The actions of human body, thus, are pertinent for deliberating upon individuated identities interacting with larger constructs—the dialectics between I and the Other, or the influence of space itself on interpersonal relations and interactions. In this manner, spaces can also be said to act upon human bodies through variegated provisions for association, performance, and engagement. These living spaces, on some occasions bring people closer through communal life, but on other occasions also subject them to isolation and social categorisation. In these instances, these places transform into sites of anonymity and loneliness, where ties of social relations are often broken. 

Keeping in mind the reciprocity between space and body, Volume 7 Issue 1 of LLIDS invites papers on the understanding of space as to how it creates a flux of embodied experiences between anonymity, immersion, relatability, and belonging, as well as investigating how experience, in turn, maps and moulds spaces based on how bodies inhabit and traverse them. The CFP anticipates research enquiries which extend the discourse on spatiality and the role of the body and its agency in the imagination and formulation of spaces. LLIDS seeks scholarly contributions which address the above theme and/or go beyond them. Some suggestive thematics are listed below:

• Urban leisure infrastructure
• Heterotopic Spaces
• Immersive experiences in Space
• Art in the city
• Aesthetics of space
• Suburbanization
• Home and the city: Interpersonal and the Impersonal
• Spatial influence on meaning and behaviour
• Memories of city: Psychological ownership
• Apathy of the urban dweller
• Transforming meaning of spatiality
• Dynamics of intercorporeal spaces

Submission Process:

• Please submit your work via the Submission form: https://forms.gle/KiAYjV1wT5h4sFzi7.
• Each of the authors needs to sign and email a separate Author Undertaking (https://ellids.com/archives/Author-Undertaking.pdf) from their respective email IDs to complete the submission process.

Submission Criteria Checklist:

• Only complete papers along with a 150 words abstract, list of keywords, and Works Cited will be considered for publication.
• Word limit for submissions (excluding Title, Abstract, Keywords, Footnotes, and Works Cited list): 3,500–10,000 words
• The papers need to be formatted according to the guidelines of the MLA 8th edition.
• Please read the complete submission guidelines before making the submission – http://ellids.com/author-guidelines/submission-guidelines/.
• LLIDS has a Zero plagiarism policy. The Similarity Index of the submissions (Quote percentage) needs to be under 20%, unless absolutely required by the research. The similarity index is a calculation of the percentage of quotes from the word count (excluding title, abstract, keywords, footnote, works cited list).

Submission deadline: 15th March, 2025

Facebook: www.facebook.com/journal.llids/

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/language-literature-and-interdisciplinary-studies.

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