September 18, 2025
4:00 pm
-
6:00 pm
Ohio Union, Barbie Tootle Room - 3rd Floor Room 3156 - 1739 N. High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43210
Speaker:
Anna Bonnell Freidin is an associate professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of Birthing Romans: Childbearing and its Risks in Imperial Rome (Princeton, 2024). She’s now working on a new book project entitled, Empire of Bread: Food and Community in Ancient Rome, a social and cultural history of Roman foodways, especially how bread shaped Romans’ social lives, urban landscapes, and concepts of material and metaphysical transformation.
Talk Description:
“Generation and/as Foodwork in Roman Culture”
From fetal nourishment to breastfeeding, Greeks and Romans viewed nutrition as absolutely central to human generation, profoundly shaping how they performed pre- and post-natal care. This talk takes this observation as a starting point to rethink the labor of human generation in Roman culture, particularly what I call “generative nurturance”—the range of activities that support fetal and infant nutrition (e.g., wet nursing). What happens if we approach “generative nurturance” as a form of “foodwork” in the Roman empire? And more specifically, how did regimes of enslavement shape this “foodwork”?
From fetal nourishment to breastfeeding, Greeks and Romans viewed nutrition as absolutely central to human generation, profoundly shaping how they performed pre- and post-natal care. This talk takes this observation as a starting point to rethink the labor of human generation in Roman culture, particularly what I call “generative nurturance”—the range of activities that support fetal and infant nutrition (e.g., wet nursing). What happens if we approach “generative nurturance” as a form of “foodwork” in the Roman empire? And more specifically, how did regimes of enslavement shape this “foodwork”?
If you are planning to join virtually, here is the registration link
