I am organizing another series of panels devoted to Food, Law, and Culture at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and Humanities to be held in Berkeley, CA next March. We have another wonderful batch of panelists. See their abstracts below:
Food, Law, and Culture Panels
Law, Culture, and Humanities Conference 2008
Chair/Discussant:
Christopher Buccafusco
University of Chicago
Panelists:
Peter Huang
Temple University Beasley School of Law
Legal Responses to Mindless Eating
Brian Wansink in his books: Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More
Than We Think & Marketing Nutrition: Soy, Functional Foods,
Biotechnology, and Obesity describes his own & related
psychological & marketing research about mindless eating &
possible responses. This paper analyzes legal & policy
implications of this research. It also connects this
research to recent research about mindfulness, meditation, &
happiness.
Charlene Elliott
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University
The governance of taste: Food marketing, food law and childhood obesity in Canada
Food marketing comprises a core part of the current food environment and is routinely identified as a main contributor to childhood obesity. Excess body weight affects over 26% of children in Canada—prompting a range of interventions to address the problem.
Studies dealing with the socio-cultural aspects contributing to childhood obesity, for example, tend to focus on the same line up of ‘suspects’ when it comes to food—the sale and consumption of sugary sodas, ‘junk’ foods and fast foods, and the food-related media messages (particularly on television) which encourage the consumption of high-sugar, low-nutrient foods. Such studies pertain to what Brownell and Horgen (2004) christened the “toxic environment” or what Swinburn et. al. (1999) call the “obesogenic environment”. Whether toxic or obesogenic, this environment is one which promotes an excess of calorie consumption over calorie expenditure, generally through the over-consumption of poorly nutritious foods.
Food policy and regulation form a key strategy in current attempts to combat the toxic environment, and this paper outlines the various modes of regulation that work to govern children’s “taste” in Canada. In particular, it details some of the promising, and problematic, aspects of seeking legal solutions to public health problems, especially when it comes to children and children’s food marketing.
Doris Long
The John Marshall Law School
Patenting Mother Earth: Food, Famine and Intellectual Property
Food security may be one of the most significant issues the global community faces today. Despite advances in genetic modification of foods to combat diverse diseases, as well as soil and climate conditions, the threat of the 21st Century equivalent of the Irish Potato Famine remains a powerful reminder of how insignificant man’s technological achievements may be when faced with the practical problem of how to feed the world’s growing population on increasing smaller percentages of arable land. At a time when biodiversity is critical to assure sufficient food security, the recognition by the United States that modified plants themselves may now be the subject of utility patents (as opposed to plant varieties) threatens not only access to critical food reserves, but the diversity which traditional knowledge protection may assure. By granting utility patent protection, US law has removed food security safeguards contained in plant variety protocols, including the benefits of “fair use” for farmers and other critical experimenters in the area of food innovation. Utility patents have already largely replaced plant varieties as the approved method of protection for modified plants in the United States and threatens to do so globally. Worse, the exclusivity concepts of utility patenting threatens to derail diversity efforts based on university research of traditional indigenous agricultural techniques. Unless steps are taken soon to remedy the situation on a global scale, propertized “food” may replace indigenous staples, leading to increased incidents of localized famine in the future.
Jennifer Schulz
Faculty of Law
University of Manitoba
Food Films: Successfully Subversive Mediation in the Movies
Abstract:
Law & Film scholars have noted the many things lawyers can learn about themselves and the legal system through an analysis of the trial genre of films. My paper analyses what we can learn about mediators and mediation from the food genre of films. Food films suggest the nourishing metaphor of the mediator as cook, to be contrasted with trial films which generally use battle metaphors and depict the lawyer as warrior. I will explore the vitality of the metaphor of cooking and how it relates to the work of dispute resolution. I will trace the metaphor of the mediator as cook through several films, explore what it reveals to us about mediation methods, and describe at least five mediation styles depicted in the food genre of films. Importantly, I will highlight how film depicts a subversive mediation style, that while contrary to classic dispute resolution teachings, is successful.
Donna Byrne
William Mitchell College of Law
Organic junk food and cloned meat: mandatory and permissive food
labeling
Summary: Food labeling laws require certain bits of information and
prohibit others. A product is "misbranded" when required information is
missing, when label information is false, or when label information is
true, but misleading. For example, to label applesauce as "Fat Free"
would be misleading because applesauce is generally fat free anyway.
This paper explores the implications of voluntary, mandatory,
and "misleading" label information in several contexts, most notably
milk from cows not treated with rBST, meat or milk from clones and their
progeny, and organic fish and vegetables. When voluntary information is
allowed and consumers care about the information, labeling is
essentially provided by default for non-labeled products (de facto
labeling). This paper argues that de facto mandatory labeling exists
when consumers care about the information provided, and that consumers
are better served by explicit label information than by implicit
information. In other words, "they" should tell "us" what we want to
know.
Ernesto Hernández-López
Assistant Professor of Law
Chapman University School of Law
A free-trade "Tortilla Discourse" ? : NAFTA corn tariffs and Mexican food identity
This presentation analyzes NAFTA's corn tariff regime from a food studies perspective. Mexican food offers a rich history, ripe for analysis. In 2008, NAFTA requires Mexico to completely eliminate corn tariffs, which protected the important cultural item of corn. What will be the national identity impact in Mexican food posed by these changes?
Historical negotiation between indigenous, european, traditional, and modernization influences produced Mexico's current cuisine. The choices people make on what to eat and the socio-economic forces providing these items are mutually influential. Dishes such as tortillas, tamales, mole poblano, and chiles en nogada are served after history prepared them as central to national identity. This is exemplified in a "tortilla discourse" (labeled by Jeffrey Pilcher) when "modern" justifications attempt to eliminate corn. Popular forces have resisted these impositions. Currently, US exports provide cheaper corn for Mexico. Reacting to global demand for ethanol, corn and tortilla prices have increased. Popular forces now seek political relief. NAFTA cements these changes to the national menu.
Doris Witt
University of Iowa
Department of English
Food Rules for the World?
The Codex Alimentarius and the Project of Culinary Harmonization in Public International Law
The Codex Alimentarius was established in 1963 as a joint venture of the
Food and Agriculture and World Health Organizations. This formerly
obscure regulatory food code has become since the mid-1990s a site of
increasing contestation because nations whose food regulations conform
to Codex standards are largely insulated in the WTO from charges of
economic protectionism. As a result, the pro-industry bias of the Codex
Commission membership and the lack of democratic accountability in its
procedural mechanisms have given rise to arguments by legal scholars for
reform, such as subjecting Commission decisions to review by an
independent dispute resolution body. Without denying the political
utility of these reformist efforts, I argue in this paper for the value
of cultural theory in helping us understand not only the aesthetic
strategies through which the Commission has attempted to legitimate its
existence but also the divergent interpretive modalities-ranging from
consumer rights and conspiracy theory to post-colonialism and
neo-agrarianism-through which Codex critics have framed their discontent
with the project of culinary harmonization in public international law.
Showing posts with label Law and Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Law and Food. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
New Wine in Old Bottles
Eric Asimov has a nice article in the New York Times today on the recent increase of counterfeited or otherwise fraudulent wines. With the escalation of prices for coveted older wines, it is not surprising that some folks have attempted to trick purchasers by counterfeiting labels or refilling wine bottles with inferior wine. In an attempt to determine whether some recently purchased bottles were legitimate, Asimov reports, the buyer invited a number of wine experts to taste samples and give their opinions.
Asimov suggests that concerns about wine fraud are fairly recent, and at least in the narrow circumstances of faking individual bottles of expensive wine, he may be right. (Of course, folks have been passing off counterfeit Cuban cigars to unsuspecting tourists for decades. Check out the excellent collection of counterfeit bands on Cigar Aficionado.) But fraudulent wine has been a problem for a long time. Burgundian winemakers were recently exposed when they used wines from southern France to bulk up their pinot. I am particularly interested, though, in the buyer's decision to convene a panel of experts to sort out the legitimate wines from the frauds. This practice actually has a considerable history itself. Since the 19th century, courts in England and America have admitted testimony by wine experts in cases of alleged fraud. It certainly seems like the kind of subject where an expert could aid the jury in an area outside the competence of most folks. So anxious wine investors of the world, please email me if you'd like my services as attorney or expert.
(For the sake of attorney ethics regulations, the previous sentence was intended as a joke and not as an advertisement for services.)
Asimov suggests that concerns about wine fraud are fairly recent, and at least in the narrow circumstances of faking individual bottles of expensive wine, he may be right. (Of course, folks have been passing off counterfeit Cuban cigars to unsuspecting tourists for decades. Check out the excellent collection of counterfeit bands on Cigar Aficionado.) But fraudulent wine has been a problem for a long time. Burgundian winemakers were recently exposed when they used wines from southern France to bulk up their pinot. I am particularly interested, though, in the buyer's decision to convene a panel of experts to sort out the legitimate wines from the frauds. This practice actually has a considerable history itself. Since the 19th century, courts in England and America have admitted testimony by wine experts in cases of alleged fraud. It certainly seems like the kind of subject where an expert could aid the jury in an area outside the competence of most folks. So anxious wine investors of the world, please email me if you'd like my services as attorney or expert.
(For the sake of attorney ethics regulations, the previous sentence was intended as a joke and not as an advertisement for services.)
Thursday, November 30, 2006
This Guacamole Haas No Avocado
The courts have just told us that a burrito is not a sandwich, and now we'll find out if guacamole legally has to contain avocado. A Los Angeles woman is suing Kraft foods over its "guacamole dip" for misleading advertising because the dip contains only 2% avocados. The article is here.
Interestingly, the article notes that peanut butter must contain at least 90% peanuts according to FDA regulations. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's that high. Many European countries take the contents of their food products very seriously. I wonder if this is the beginning of greater federal regulation in this country.
Interestingly, the article notes that peanut butter must contain at least 90% peanuts according to FDA regulations. Frankly, I'm surprised that it's that high. Many European countries take the contents of their food products very seriously. I wonder if this is the beginning of greater federal regulation in this country.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Food, Law, and Culture Panels
A while back I published a Call for Papers for a panel devoted to food and the law at the upcoming Law, Culture, and Humanities conference at Georgetown University. I got an excellent response and am forming two panels on the subject. Here are the abstracts for the papers:
J. Amy Dillard
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Baltimore
School of Law
“Sloppy Joe, Slop, Sloppy Joe”: How USDA Commodities Dumping Destroyed the National School Lunch Program
Alice Waters, the godmother of the organic, whole food movement, has set the considerable resources of her Chez Panisse Foundation to the task of reforming school lunch in Berkeley, California, while working within the confines of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). First funded by Congress in 1946, the NSLP combined two post-Depression Era objectives: 1) assist with the health of the nation’s children, and 2) ensure a market for farmers. The Department of Agriculture has used the NSLP to turn the nation’s school lunchrooms into a commodities dumping ground that has produced a glut of obese children and an expanding agribusiness that processes whole foods into nutritional nightmares.
This paper will explore the history of the NSLP and its complex relationship with USDA commodities, will examine the agribusiness of converting commodities into unhealthy lunchroom food, and will conclude by discussing the cultural challenges faced by the organic, whole food movement for bringing healthy food to a land where “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving” freaks are excoriated by social conservatives.
*******
James Smith
John Byrd Martin Chair of Law
University of Georgia School of Law
Genetically modified pollen drifting onto the field of a neighboring farm may cause substantial harm. If the bystanding farmer is growing non-genetically modified crops, she may suffer a pecuniary loss due to genetic ‘pollution.’ If the pollen is patented, the patentee may also claim harm stemming from the unauthorized distribution of its proprietary genetic material. Disputes arising from pollen drift present classic legal questions arising under the law of neighbors and classic economic questions broached most famously by Ronald Coase in his essay on The Problem of Social Cost. The application of the Coase Theorem and its most applicable corollary strongly suggest that: 1) balancing rules under nuisance law should be applied on a case-by-case basis to determine whether any particular genetic polluter should be liable for damages caused by pollen drift; and 2) most bystanding farmers should have viable defenses to patent infringement. Venerable legal principles applied to this new problem suggest the same two conclusions. Proving both propositions provides a textbook demonstration for the usefulness of economic analysis and solves a world-wide multi-billion dollar legal problem.
******
Morgan L. Holcomb
Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota Law School
The local food movement has taken root (or perhaps taken root again). Witness books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan) and Eat Here (Halweil), activists taking on school lunches (Alice Waters revamping the Berkeley public school cafeteria), and the proliferation of farmers markets in almost all regions of the country.
This local food movement evidences a new or renewed interest in where our food comes from. Some farmers hope that it also means a renewed interest in keeping farms as “family farms” and a renewed economic commitment to do so. But what is meant by the term “family farm”? Shall we include large-scale commodity farms, or is “family farm” a proxy for something else? Perhaps by “family farm” we intend something other than simply any farm owned by a family.
This paper will begin by exploring what we mean by “family farm.” It will then go on to address what role will the tax code plays in our complicated agricultural system. Finally, the paper will address whether the tax code in fact save the family farm, and if saving the family farm a goal worth achieving.
******
Charlene Elliott
Assistant Professor
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University
In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Quebec’s long-standing law that prohibits the sale of yellow margarine. While the precise colour of margarine may seem trivial, the dispute carries on a century-old tradition in Canada of placing margarine in the legal (and lobbyist’s) limelight.
Margarine presents a long and bizarre legal history which opens the door for probing both the notion of legislative intent and the belief in a product’s communicative potential. The buttery impostor has been banned, outlawed, bootlegged, taxed and colour-coded—and even implicated in the Canadian Constitution
Inspired by Arjun Appadurai’s (1988) claim that ‘objects have social lives’, this analysis provides a legal ‘biography’ of margarine in Canada from 1886 to present. It details how the product has become the site of contestation, negotiation and special interest claims, and how the evolving regulation of margarine reflects some surprisingly consistent social realities.
******
Jonathan M. Gutoff
Associate Professor of Law
Roger Williams University School of Law
Under the Common Law, certain animals were classified as “royal” and were preserved for the sovereign as part of his or her prerogative. However, while salmon were recognized to be “great fish” they were not considered to be royal fish. I propose to use the case of sturgeon and salmon to explore the relationship between law and culture. Specifically, my plan is to investigate how the culinary and social distinction between sturgeon and salmon in the medieval period was reflected in the development of the legal distinction. Then, and this is why this case study may prove quite interesting, I hope to show how, in turn, the legal distinction in early-modern and modern times was reflected in the social and culinary position of sturgeon and salmon.
******
Patrick Baude
Ralph F. Fuchs Professor of Law and Public Service
Indiana University – Bloomington
Memory and the Twenty-First Amendment.
The Twenty-First Amendment (1) repeals Prohibition and (2) allows states to prohibit the transportation or importation of intoxicating liquors. Justice Stevens, dissenting from a recent Supreme Court opinion somewhat limiting state bans on importation, observed that the Court’s decision would “seem strange indeed to the millions of Americans who condemned the use of ‘demon rum.”’ This is a sensible thing to say about Prohibition but quite an odd thing to say about an amendment repealing Prohibition. His comment was especially powerful, however odd, in light of the implication that he had personal memory of this particular bit of legislative history. In fact, one can remember that history as a condemnation of strong drink or as a condemnation of the corruption created by the ban itself. Which memory one privileges will determine whether the penumbra of the Amendment is “wet” or “dry.” This paper traces the link between that history and a number of current questions, such as: (1) Can parents allow their twenty-year old children a glass of wine? (2) Can women be forbidden to drink because they might be pregnant? (3) Can sleeping pills be banned because they sometimes cause automobile accidents?
******
Christopher J. Buccafusco
University of Chicago
A Culture of Hospitality: Social Norms and Intellectual Property Among Chefs
American law offers little in the way of intellectual property protection to chefs’ creative recipes. Nonetheless, an informal system of social norms exists among chefs that serves to promote recipe innovation, assign credit to creative chefs, and inhibit rampant copying. This paper will examine the history of these quasi-IP norms and the culinary profession’s overarching “culture of hospitality.” It will attempt to determine whether the existence of such norms made the low-IP situation possible or whether they developed in response to a lack of legal protection. Finally, it will consider whether such a system is uniquely possible in the culinary profession or whether it can shed light on other areas of cultural property.
J. Amy Dillard
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Baltimore
School of Law
“Sloppy Joe, Slop, Sloppy Joe”: How USDA Commodities Dumping Destroyed the National School Lunch Program
Alice Waters, the godmother of the organic, whole food movement, has set the considerable resources of her Chez Panisse Foundation to the task of reforming school lunch in Berkeley, California, while working within the confines of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). First funded by Congress in 1946, the NSLP combined two post-Depression Era objectives: 1) assist with the health of the nation’s children, and 2) ensure a market for farmers. The Department of Agriculture has used the NSLP to turn the nation’s school lunchrooms into a commodities dumping ground that has produced a glut of obese children and an expanding agribusiness that processes whole foods into nutritional nightmares.
This paper will explore the history of the NSLP and its complex relationship with USDA commodities, will examine the agribusiness of converting commodities into unhealthy lunchroom food, and will conclude by discussing the cultural challenges faced by the organic, whole food movement for bringing healthy food to a land where “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving” freaks are excoriated by social conservatives.
*******
James Smith
John Byrd Martin Chair of Law
University of Georgia School of Law
Genetically modified pollen drifting onto the field of a neighboring farm may cause substantial harm. If the bystanding farmer is growing non-genetically modified crops, she may suffer a pecuniary loss due to genetic ‘pollution.’ If the pollen is patented, the patentee may also claim harm stemming from the unauthorized distribution of its proprietary genetic material. Disputes arising from pollen drift present classic legal questions arising under the law of neighbors and classic economic questions broached most famously by Ronald Coase in his essay on The Problem of Social Cost. The application of the Coase Theorem and its most applicable corollary strongly suggest that: 1) balancing rules under nuisance law should be applied on a case-by-case basis to determine whether any particular genetic polluter should be liable for damages caused by pollen drift; and 2) most bystanding farmers should have viable defenses to patent infringement. Venerable legal principles applied to this new problem suggest the same two conclusions. Proving both propositions provides a textbook demonstration for the usefulness of economic analysis and solves a world-wide multi-billion dollar legal problem.
******
Morgan L. Holcomb
Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota Law School
The local food movement has taken root (or perhaps taken root again). Witness books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Pollan) and Eat Here (Halweil), activists taking on school lunches (Alice Waters revamping the Berkeley public school cafeteria), and the proliferation of farmers markets in almost all regions of the country.
This local food movement evidences a new or renewed interest in where our food comes from. Some farmers hope that it also means a renewed interest in keeping farms as “family farms” and a renewed economic commitment to do so. But what is meant by the term “family farm”? Shall we include large-scale commodity farms, or is “family farm” a proxy for something else? Perhaps by “family farm” we intend something other than simply any farm owned by a family.
This paper will begin by exploring what we mean by “family farm.” It will then go on to address what role will the tax code plays in our complicated agricultural system. Finally, the paper will address whether the tax code in fact save the family farm, and if saving the family farm a goal worth achieving.
******
Charlene Elliott
Assistant Professor
School of Journalism and Communication
Carleton University
In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Quebec’s long-standing law that prohibits the sale of yellow margarine. While the precise colour of margarine may seem trivial, the dispute carries on a century-old tradition in Canada of placing margarine in the legal (and lobbyist’s) limelight.
Margarine presents a long and bizarre legal history which opens the door for probing both the notion of legislative intent and the belief in a product’s communicative potential. The buttery impostor has been banned, outlawed, bootlegged, taxed and colour-coded—and even implicated in the Canadian Constitution
Inspired by Arjun Appadurai’s (1988) claim that ‘objects have social lives’, this analysis provides a legal ‘biography’ of margarine in Canada from 1886 to present. It details how the product has become the site of contestation, negotiation and special interest claims, and how the evolving regulation of margarine reflects some surprisingly consistent social realities.
******
Jonathan M. Gutoff
Associate Professor of Law
Roger Williams University School of Law
Under the Common Law, certain animals were classified as “royal” and were preserved for the sovereign as part of his or her prerogative. However, while salmon were recognized to be “great fish” they were not considered to be royal fish. I propose to use the case of sturgeon and salmon to explore the relationship between law and culture. Specifically, my plan is to investigate how the culinary and social distinction between sturgeon and salmon in the medieval period was reflected in the development of the legal distinction. Then, and this is why this case study may prove quite interesting, I hope to show how, in turn, the legal distinction in early-modern and modern times was reflected in the social and culinary position of sturgeon and salmon.
******
Patrick Baude
Ralph F. Fuchs Professor of Law and Public Service
Indiana University – Bloomington
Memory and the Twenty-First Amendment.
The Twenty-First Amendment (1) repeals Prohibition and (2) allows states to prohibit the transportation or importation of intoxicating liquors. Justice Stevens, dissenting from a recent Supreme Court opinion somewhat limiting state bans on importation, observed that the Court’s decision would “seem strange indeed to the millions of Americans who condemned the use of ‘demon rum.”’ This is a sensible thing to say about Prohibition but quite an odd thing to say about an amendment repealing Prohibition. His comment was especially powerful, however odd, in light of the implication that he had personal memory of this particular bit of legislative history. In fact, one can remember that history as a condemnation of strong drink or as a condemnation of the corruption created by the ban itself. Which memory one privileges will determine whether the penumbra of the Amendment is “wet” or “dry.” This paper traces the link between that history and a number of current questions, such as: (1) Can parents allow their twenty-year old children a glass of wine? (2) Can women be forbidden to drink because they might be pregnant? (3) Can sleeping pills be banned because they sometimes cause automobile accidents?
******
Christopher J. Buccafusco
University of Chicago
A Culture of Hospitality: Social Norms and Intellectual Property Among Chefs
American law offers little in the way of intellectual property protection to chefs’ creative recipes. Nonetheless, an informal system of social norms exists among chefs that serves to promote recipe innovation, assign credit to creative chefs, and inhibit rampant copying. This paper will examine the history of these quasi-IP norms and the culinary profession’s overarching “culture of hospitality.” It will attempt to determine whether the existence of such norms made the low-IP situation possible or whether they developed in response to a lack of legal protection. Finally, it will consider whether such a system is uniquely possible in the culinary profession or whether it can shed light on other areas of cultural property.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Food, Law, and Culture Panel - Call for Papers
The folks at LawCulture have been nice enough to link to my Food, Law, and Culture call for papers, so I am moving it to the top of my blog. Please stop by their blog if you get the chance.
****
I am currently soliciting paper presentations for a new panel on “Food, Law, and Culture” for the annual Law, Culture, and Humanities Conference to be held at Georgetown University, March 23-24 2007.
Last year’s conference included a handful of “Law and Food” papers in different panels. They were all well-received, and the topics they addressed seem worthy of integration into a single panel. The panel’s goal will be to begin theorizing about the place(s) of food in the law by exploring both the different ways law treats food and the various cultural norms about food that lie behind this treatment. My work, for example, analyzes the copyrightability of recipes through the lenses of aesthetic philosophy and the cultural history of cooks and cooking.
Topics can include, but are not limited to:
Intellectual property rights in genetically modified foods
Hunger strikes and force-feeding prisoners
Last meals
Food torts, e.g. exploding sodas, fingers in chili, coffee in the lap
Government regulation of food and alcohol
Obesity regulation
Animal rights
Dietary laws and regulations in different cultures
Trademark rights in appellations of origin
Farm subsidies and international trade
Linguistic classification of food, e.g. kosher, 1st Growths, Organic
Sumptuary laws
Famine
Labeling, packaging, and branding
Rationing
Food stamps
The deadline for submissions to the conference is October 15, 2006, so please respond well before then if you think you might be interested in joining the panel. Also, please circulate this to any colleagues that might be interested. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Christopher Buccafusco
chrstphr@uchicago.edu
****
I am currently soliciting paper presentations for a new panel on “Food, Law, and Culture” for the annual Law, Culture, and Humanities Conference to be held at Georgetown University, March 23-24 2007.
Last year’s conference included a handful of “Law and Food” papers in different panels. They were all well-received, and the topics they addressed seem worthy of integration into a single panel. The panel’s goal will be to begin theorizing about the place(s) of food in the law by exploring both the different ways law treats food and the various cultural norms about food that lie behind this treatment. My work, for example, analyzes the copyrightability of recipes through the lenses of aesthetic philosophy and the cultural history of cooks and cooking.
Topics can include, but are not limited to:
Intellectual property rights in genetically modified foods
Hunger strikes and force-feeding prisoners
Last meals
Food torts, e.g. exploding sodas, fingers in chili, coffee in the lap
Government regulation of food and alcohol
Obesity regulation
Animal rights
Dietary laws and regulations in different cultures
Trademark rights in appellations of origin
Farm subsidies and international trade
Linguistic classification of food, e.g. kosher, 1st Growths, Organic
Sumptuary laws
Famine
Labeling, packaging, and branding
Rationing
Food stamps
The deadline for submissions to the conference is October 15, 2006, so please respond well before then if you think you might be interested in joining the panel. Also, please circulate this to any colleagues that might be interested. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Christopher Buccafusco
chrstphr@uchicago.edu
Friday, August 11, 2006
On the Legal Consequences of Sauces: Should Thomas Keller's Recipes be Per Se Copyrightable?
A draft of my paper on the copyrightability of recipes in American law is now available at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=923712
While writing this article, I was fortunate enough to interview Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, Rick Tramonto, Homaro Cantu, Norman van Aken, and Wylie Dufresne. Comments are welcome.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=923712
While writing this article, I was fortunate enough to interview Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, Rick Tramonto, Homaro Cantu, Norman van Aken, and Wylie Dufresne. Comments are welcome.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Call for Papers: Food, Law, and Culture Panel
I am currently soliciting paper presentations for a new panel on “Food, Law, and Culture” for the annual Law, Culture, and Humanities Conference to be held at Georgetown University, March 23-24 2007.
Last year’s conference included a handful of “Law and Food” papers in different panels. They were all well-received, and the topics they addressed seem worthy of integration into a single panel. The panel’s goal will be to begin theorizing about the place(s) of food in the law by exploring both the different ways law treats food and the various cultural norms about food that lie behind this treatment. My work, for example, analyzes the copyrightability of recipes through the lenses of aesthetic philosophy and the cultural history of cooks and cooking.
Topics can include, but are not limited to:
Intellectual property rights in genetically modified foods
Hunger strikes and force-feeding prisoners
Last meals
Food torts, e.g. exploding sodas, fingers in chili, coffee in the lap
Government regulation of food and alcohol
Obesity regulation
Animal rights
Dietary laws and regulations in different cultures
Trademark rights in appellations of origin
Farm subsidies and international trade
Linguistic classification of food, e.g. kosher, 1st Growths, Organic
Sumptuary laws
Famine
Labeling, packaging, and branding
Rationing
Food stamps
The deadline for submissions to the conference is October 15, 2006, so please respond well before then if you think you might be interested in joining the panel. Also, please circulate this to any colleagues that might be interested. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Christopher Buccafusco
chrstphr@uchicago.edu
Last year’s conference included a handful of “Law and Food” papers in different panels. They were all well-received, and the topics they addressed seem worthy of integration into a single panel. The panel’s goal will be to begin theorizing about the place(s) of food in the law by exploring both the different ways law treats food and the various cultural norms about food that lie behind this treatment. My work, for example, analyzes the copyrightability of recipes through the lenses of aesthetic philosophy and the cultural history of cooks and cooking.
Topics can include, but are not limited to:
Intellectual property rights in genetically modified foods
Hunger strikes and force-feeding prisoners
Last meals
Food torts, e.g. exploding sodas, fingers in chili, coffee in the lap
Government regulation of food and alcohol
Obesity regulation
Animal rights
Dietary laws and regulations in different cultures
Trademark rights in appellations of origin
Farm subsidies and international trade
Linguistic classification of food, e.g. kosher, 1st Growths, Organic
Sumptuary laws
Famine
Labeling, packaging, and branding
Rationing
Food stamps
The deadline for submissions to the conference is October 15, 2006, so please respond well before then if you think you might be interested in joining the panel. Also, please circulate this to any colleagues that might be interested. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Christopher Buccafusco
chrstphr@uchicago.edu
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