Alimentopia Events

Over the years, we have hosted various events from conferences to cinema sessions, and many more. On this page, you can find references to some of the past events that took place from 2016 to 2024.

CETAPS Digital Lab | Open Day

The event was held on may 27, 2024 within the scope of research projects promoted by CETAPS (Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies) in partnership with a Digital Lab in order to make the public aware of the work carried out in the area of ​​Anglo-Portuguese Studies. Alimentopia was a great part of the event, as The current JRAAS team presented the archives of O Vegetariano (1909-1935), and showcased some of the receipts from the magazine.

Visitors also participated in a utopian/dystopian literature game, where they randomly selected food-related quotes from a jar without knowing the source novel. Based on the quote, they guessed whether the novel was utopian or dystopian. The game helped deepen understanding of how people perceive different societies through the lens of food use and production.

Seminars

  • II JRAAS Anglo American Studies Meeting. University of Porto. May 14-15th. JRAAS Seminar – “A Pedra que os Construtores Rejeitaram, Tornou-se Pedra Angular”: Circunstâncias de um Percurso Intelectual. Mário Avelar. University of Porto. May 15th.
  • JRAAS Seminar – Expressão Obscura / Clareza da Obscuridade: Edgar Allan Poe em Português. Margarida Vale de Gato. University of Porto. April 19th.
  • III Colóquio JRAAS – Dissecting the Human Body: Rethinking its Materiality, Sensibility and (Ab)Normality. University of Porto. March 13th.
  • JRAAS Seminar – Imagined Cities in Utopia and Social Sciences. Elton Dias Xavier. University of Porto. February 29th.
  • JRAAS Seminar – Louis MacNeice and the Politics of Museum Culture: Making Sense of the Earth. Rui Carvalho Homem. University of Porto. January 23rd.
  • JRAAS Seminar: Kellog and Cow Protection – British and American Life Reform and Hindu Nationalism in the 1890s with Prof. Julia Hauser (University of Kassel) June 18th | 3:00 pm | Reitoria da U.Porto 
  • JRAAS Seminar: Approaches to Translanguaging in Bilingual Settings with Nayalin Pinho. February 27th.
  • Training Sessions JRAAS | Revision and Editing of Texts. February 27th.
  • JRAAS Seminar, Chapter  XIII – A Utopia do Tempo: Notas Sobre a Importância Política do Tempo Nas Práticas Artísticas Contemporâneas com Fernando José Pereira. March 29th| 15h30 | Sala de Reuniões 1

CINEMA SESSIONS

  • Cinema JRAAS – Soylent Green. Commentary by João Barreiros Universidade do Porto. April 6th, 2018.
  • Cinema JRAAS – O Som ao Redor. Commentary by Rosa Maria Martelo. February 18th, 2018
  • Cinema JRAAS – The Fountainhead. Comentary by Miguel Ramalhete. January 30th, 2018

JRAAS Reading Club – Thinking Beyond the Canon

  • January Session – The Jedi Cult: the Force as Philosophy and Religion. January, 25th, 2018.
  • February Session – Berlim, Poesia e Transculturalidade, February 15th, 2018.
  • March Session – Uma Exploração do Fantástico Pós-Tolkien. March 14th, 2018.
  • June Session – Dreaming Away Your Life: Self-Insertion and Fabricated Identity in Videogames. June 28th, 2018.
  • July Session – Analisando Perspectivas Independentes. July 20th, 2018. Confraria Vermelha Livraria de Mulheres. 

Project ALIMENTOPIA

  • Series of Workshops: Alimentando o Outono

October – November 2018

This series of workshops was organized by Maria Teresa Castilho and consisted of three workshops/sessions:

– The first season took place on October 4th where João Castro Santos presented “Alimentopia: de Senhor dos Anéis a Harry Potter”;

– The second session took place on October 18th where Maria Luísa Malato presented “A anorexia nos conventos, em Saturno e noutros planetas”;

– The third session took place on 22nd November where Sofia de Melo Araújo presented “Para bom entendedor… o que é ‘natural’, ‘saudável’, ‘justo’, ‘orgânico’?”.

  • A cycle of Lectures about food in contemporary Portuguese Thought

February – May 2019

Rui Lopo (Collaborator of the Research Group “Raízes e Horizontes da Filosofia e da Cultura em Portugal” | Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto) was invited as a lecturer of this cycle, which was moderated by the members of the Alimentopia project Celeste Natário, Fátima Vieira and Maria Luísa Malato. This Cycle of Lectures included four sessions, focusing on how food was/is seen in Portuguese contemporary thought. These seminars were set out to demonstrate not only the uniqueness of each theoretical proposal in the context of Portuguese culture but also to show how this theme imposes itself in a much more powerful way than has been recognized in the texts of Guerra Junqueiro, Sampaio Bruno, Teixeira Rego and Pinharanda Gomes, having a decisive function and place in their works.

  • The workshop, titled “Utopian Thinking and Serious Game Design: Two Powerful Tools to Fight Foodwaste

On 29 September 2016, Fátima Vieira offered a workshop (along with Marcelo Alves de Barros, from Brazil, participating via Skype) to the delegates of the Food Futures / Eursafe International Conference. The workshop aimed to familiarise the reader with the principles of utopian thinking and the basic of alternative game design.

  • Workshop on Food and Migration. Young Researchers Day. June 16th, 2018.

Organized by Ana Paula Coutinho and Marta Correia.

Young Researcher’s Day, June 26th

Patrícia Oliveira and Manuel J. Sousa Oliveira, Project ALIMENTOPIA’s trainees, organized the Young Researchers Day. The trainees shared the work/investigation they developed in the scope of the Project during their internship. The participants were asked to apply the Utopian Questions to text excerpts provided by the trainees.

  • Presentation Session “Nutrition Terminology. Popularizing the definition for the benefit of health literacy”

“Terminologia da Nutrição – A vulgarização da definição em prol da literacia em saúde”, 18 de Novembro 2019″. November 18th, 2019

Presentation by Rute Costa and Raquel Silva for the project alimentopia/utopian foodways.

Conferences

The Project was part of the organization of EurSAFE 2016 – Food Futures: Ethics, Science & Culture, an International Congress, organized by i3S (Institute for Research and Innovation in Health) in partnership with CETAPS, from the University of Porto, which was held at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto from September 28th to October 1st, 2016.

Given the implications the “food problem” entails and that the construction of an inclusive society must redirect the concerns about food in the present to the imagination of future alternatives, this congress had as its goal the discussion and search for innovative solutions, calling for a multidisciplinary critical inquiry – and utopian thinking was instrumental in that regard. The conference was amply attended by the international academic community (200 delegates).

In 2019, the members of the project (through CETAPS and ILCML) organized the More Meals to Come: An International Conference, which was held at the Faculty of Letras of the University of Porto from the 11th to the 13th of April.

This international conference counted with 28 communications, 5 round tables, 3 keynote speeches, and 1 interactive exhibition.