Sofia Rüdiger - BæFoLa

The Bayreuth - Berlin Food and Language (BæFoLa) digital lecture series originated at the University of Bayreuth in winter 2021/2022, back then known as Bayreuth Food and Language lecture series (BaFoLa). With the launch of Season 8, BaFoLa was rebranded as BæFoLa. As monthly lecture series it continues to highlight linguistic research on food, regardless of the subject language.

Season 9 kicks off in October and typically takes place on the last Friday of each month from 12:30 to 13:30 (CET) (see schedule below for exceptions). BæFoLa is co-organized by Prof. Susanne Mühleisen (University of Bayreuth) and Prof. Sofia Rüdiger (Freie Universität Berlin). To request the Zoom link for upcoming talks or to join the mailing list, please email sofia.ruediger@fu-berlin.de.

Program (Winter 2025/2026) - Season 9

October 31, 12:30-13:30 CET: Jonatan Leer (Örebro University)

tba

November 28, 12:30-13:30 CET: Isabel Espinosa Zaragoza (University of Alicante)

tba

December 19, 12:30-13:30 CET: Carolin Schneider Ward (University of Duisburg-Essen)

Bake, Tic, Repeat: Multimodal Self-Reactions in the Digital Kitchen

January 30, 12:30-13:30 CET: Stefan Hauser (University of Teacher Education Zug)

Dynamisation Processes in Cooking Videos on TikTok: A Media Linguistic Approach

Previous Talks

Season 8 (Summer 2025)

Irene Theodoropoulou (Qatar University) - Branding Athens as a Gastronomic Destination: Evidence from ready2Board Magazine (April 25)

Dominik Gerst (University of Duisburg-Essen) - How to Live Vegan: Communicative Practices and Genres of Vegan Influencers (June 6)

Crispin Thurlow (University of Bern) - Super-Elite Feasting: On the Intersection of Conspicuous and Hedonistic Waste (June 27)

Season 7 (Winter 2024/2025)

Anna Islentyeva (Heidelberg University) - A Comparative Analysis of Femininity and Masculinity in Food and Beverage Advertising (October 25)

Ariana Gunderson (Indiana University Bloomington) - Veganizing Language: Strategies for Plant-based Legibility in Germany (November 29)

Marlén Izquierdo (Universidad del País Vasco) - Cooking and Language in English and Spanish: Exploring the Communicative Function(s) of Online Food Descriptions with the CLANES Corpus (December 20)

Loukia Lindholm (Åbo Akademi University) - Constructing the Authentic in User-generated Online Reviews of Ethnic Restaurants (January 31)

Season 6 (Summer 2024)

Michael Chesnut (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies) - A Survey of English on Flavored Milk Cartons in South Korea: From ‘Bling Bling’ and ‘Cheongdo Persimmon Milk’ to ‘My Style, My Life, My Milk’ (April 26, 2024)

Marco Bagli (University for Foreigners of Perugia) - The Linguistic Representation of Gustatory Perception in English (May 31, 2024)

Sylvia Jaworska & Iwona Gibas (University of Reading) - What Does She Need: Magic Velvet Beans or Nettle? Intersections of Food, Science and Gender in Magazine Ads (June 28, 2024)

Season 5 (Winter 2023/2024)

Ursula Kania (University of Liverpool) - “So Be Good to Yourself, and Enjoy that Lobster”: Exploring Discourses of Femininity and Self-Care in American Cookbooks for One (October 27, 2023)

Sofia Rüdiger (University of Bayreuth) - The Discursive Construction of Eating as Entertainment: Carnivalesque Consumption in the Digital Sphere (November 24, 2023)

Martha Sif Karrebæk (University of Copenhagen) - Danish Food from a Linguistic Ethnographic Perspective: A Retrospective Look at Food and Language Work (January 26, 2024)

Season 4 (Summer 2023)

Marcelyn Oostendorp (Stellenbosch University) - Politics of the Belly: Food, Memory and Discursive Identity Construction in South African Food-and-Memory Cookbooks (April 26, 2023)

Jillian R. Cavanaugh (City University of New York) - Food Chronotopes: Heritage Food, Safe Food, and the Value of Family (May 24, 2023)

Cynthia Gordon (Georgetown University) - Discursively Constructing Fusion Food as "Authentic" in Food Infotainment Videos (June 28, 2023)

Season 3 (Winter 2022/2023)

Göran Eriksson (Örebro University) - Selling "Good" and Healthy Food with Science: A Multimodal Approach to Marketing of Food and Beverages (October 28, 2022)

Marie-Louise Brunner & Stefan Diemer (Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld | Hochschule Trier) - "{closes eyes and chews} It's not ... a cool taste“ - Humor and Interactive Stance in Food Talk (November 25, 2022)

Polly Szatrowski (University of Minnesota) - Negotiating Inclusion and Exclusion in Japanese Food Assessments with Language and the Body (January 27, 2023)

Season 2 (Summer 2022)

Alla Tovares (Howard University) - Food and Poetics: Creating Multimodal Involvement and Social Meanings on TikTok (April 29, 2022)

Ana Tominc (QMU Edinburgh) - Bananas – Bendy and Otherwise: Interrogating the Relationship Between Britain and the EU Through “Banana” Corpus Analysis (May 27, 2022)

Keri Matwick (NTU Singapore) & Kelsi Matwick (University of Florida) - “Trailblazers”: Singapore’s Discourse Around Lab-Grown Meats (June 24, 2022)

Tina Bartelmeß (University of Bayreuth) - Parental Conversations About Sugar in Online Forums: More Than Food Talks (July 29, 2022)

Season 1 (Winter 2021/2022)

Sally Wiggins Young (Linköping University) - Eating Sounds: At the Edges of Language, Food, and Bodies (October 29, 2021)

Hanwool Choe (University of Hong Kong) - Livestreaming and Vlogging as Digital Modalities to Eat Together and Eat Well (November 26, 2021)

Eva Lavric (University of Innsbruck) & Brigitte Seidler-Lunzer (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) - Wine Tastings as a Genre in Expert/Non-Expert Communication and the Impact of Stance on Its Content and Structure: An Empirical Analysis (January 28, 2022)