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Anthropology Colloquium: Dr. Mark Padoongpatt

The Department of Anthropology presents "Too Hot to Handle? Food, Taste, and Race in post-1965 Los Angeles," a talk by Dr. Mark Padoongpatt, UNLV. In his talk we will explore why and how food shaped race in late 20th century U.S. society. Focusing on Thai immigrants, Dr. Padoongpatt will trace the ways in which food operated as a site of racial formation where taste, smell, and sight worked in concert to construct Thai Americans as an exotic, non-white other. Thais, however, also relied on flavors and tastes to discern what they saw as critical ethnic differences between themselves and other Asians. Dr. Padoongpatt argues that food practices are significant because they show us that social hierarchies of power have been inscribed on bodies by categories that are created and maintained by other human senses besides sight. Moreover, he'll demonstrate that food, as a practice of everyday life, helps people make sense of and imagine their relationship to the world around them – an inherently political act.

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