This presentation examines the video recipes by singer, writer, artist, and content creator Tommy... more This presentation examines the video recipes by singer, writer, artist, and content creator Tommy Kuti for the "Fuori di…sede" series featured in the YouTube channel Chef in camicia. In this series, Kuti, who is Nigerian and Italian, presents dishes belonging to the Nigerian and West African diaspora spanning from Jollof Rice to Akara, from Pepper Soup to Fried Yam. I adopt a theoretical framework based on Isabelle de Solier's conceptualization of material culture that considers not only food per se but also the media focusing on it as concurring constitutive elements of the material culture of food. Exploring the relationship between people and things, such an approach illuminates how we create a sense of identity through consumption and production of food as well as the knowledge that this material culture generates (Food and the Self 2-3). In this sense, I will analyze how, by addressing a wide audience through a popular outlet, Kuti highlights the homely quality of his recipes to reflect politically upon his own belonging to transnational contexts, among which postcolonial Italy, and his experience as a Black Italian. I argue that his video recipes also expand Italy's digital foodscape as they bring to the fore compelling issues in contemporary Italy such as racism, forms of anti-racist resistance, citizenship, and belonging. Simultaneously, Kuti's videos can also be seen as an attempt to dismantle monolithically constructed and conceived Italian foodways as they position racialized, diasporic and transnational culinary cultures on the figurative national table.
Presented at the Graduate Conference “Food for Body and Soul: Representations, Symbols, and Practices of Nourishment in Italian Studies” / “Cibo per il corpo, cibo per lo spirito: rappresentazioni, simboli e pratiche del nutrimento nell’italianistica”, held in the Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto, November 4-6 2022.
Interview with cinema studies scholar Jessica Whitehead on her research on Italian films distribu... more Interview with cinema studies scholar Jessica Whitehead on her research on Italian films distribution and exhibition in Canada in the Postwar era (November 5, 2019) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with Professor Angelica Pesarini, Department of Italian Studies and Centre for Diaspora... more Interview with Professor Angelica Pesarini, Department of Italian Studies and Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto, (February 15, 2022) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with the activist group, Italian Canadians for Black Lives
(October 7, 2020) - Corrier... more Interview with the activist group, Italian Canadians for Black Lives (October 7, 2020) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with food historian, writer, and blogger Karima Moyer-Nocchi on the history of Italian ... more Interview with food historian, writer, and blogger Karima Moyer-Nocchi on the history of Italian food (November 26, 2019) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with writer, scholar, and activist Oiza Queens Day Obasuyi in occasion of the presentat... more Interview with writer, scholar, and activist Oiza Queens Day Obasuyi in occasion of the presentation of her book "Corpi estranei" (People 2020) at Librissimi – Toronto Italian Book Festival, 2021
This presentation examines the video recipes by singer, writer, artist, and content creator Tommy... more This presentation examines the video recipes by singer, writer, artist, and content creator Tommy Kuti for the "Fuori di…sede" series featured in the YouTube channel Chef in camicia. In this series, Kuti, who is Nigerian and Italian, presents dishes belonging to the Nigerian and West African diaspora spanning from Jollof Rice to Akara, from Pepper Soup to Fried Yam. I adopt a theoretical framework based on Isabelle de Solier's conceptualization of material culture that considers not only food per se but also the media focusing on it as concurring constitutive elements of the material culture of food. Exploring the relationship between people and things, such an approach illuminates how we create a sense of identity through consumption and production of food as well as the knowledge that this material culture generates (Food and the Self 2-3). In this sense, I will analyze how, by addressing a wide audience through a popular outlet, Kuti highlights the homely quality of his recipes to reflect politically upon his own belonging to transnational contexts, among which postcolonial Italy, and his experience as a Black Italian. I argue that his video recipes also expand Italy's digital foodscape as they bring to the fore compelling issues in contemporary Italy such as racism, forms of anti-racist resistance, citizenship, and belonging. Simultaneously, Kuti's videos can also be seen as an attempt to dismantle monolithically constructed and conceived Italian foodways as they position racialized, diasporic and transnational culinary cultures on the figurative national table.
Presented at the Graduate Conference “Food for Body and Soul: Representations, Symbols, and Practices of Nourishment in Italian Studies” / “Cibo per il corpo, cibo per lo spirito: rappresentazioni, simboli e pratiche del nutrimento nell’italianistica”, held in the Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto, November 4-6 2022.
Interview with cinema studies scholar Jessica Whitehead on her research on Italian films distribu... more Interview with cinema studies scholar Jessica Whitehead on her research on Italian films distribution and exhibition in Canada in the Postwar era (November 5, 2019) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with Professor Angelica Pesarini, Department of Italian Studies and Centre for Diaspora... more Interview with Professor Angelica Pesarini, Department of Italian Studies and Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, University of Toronto, (February 15, 2022) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with the activist group, Italian Canadians for Black Lives
(October 7, 2020) - Corrier... more Interview with the activist group, Italian Canadians for Black Lives (October 7, 2020) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with food historian, writer, and blogger Karima Moyer-Nocchi on the history of Italian ... more Interview with food historian, writer, and blogger Karima Moyer-Nocchi on the history of Italian food (November 26, 2019) - Corriere Canadese
Interview with writer, scholar, and activist Oiza Queens Day Obasuyi in occasion of the presentat... more Interview with writer, scholar, and activist Oiza Queens Day Obasuyi in occasion of the presentation of her book "Corpi estranei" (People 2020) at Librissimi – Toronto Italian Book Festival, 2021
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Presented at the Graduate Conference “Food for Body and Soul: Representations, Symbols, and Practices of Nourishment in Italian Studies” / “Cibo per il corpo, cibo per lo spirito: rappresentazioni, simboli e pratiche del nutrimento nell’italianistica”, held in the Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto, November 4-6 2022.
(October 7, 2020) - Corriere Canadese
Presented at the Graduate Conference “Food for Body and Soul: Representations, Symbols, and Practices of Nourishment in Italian Studies” / “Cibo per il corpo, cibo per lo spirito: rappresentazioni, simboli e pratiche del nutrimento nell’italianistica”, held in the Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto, November 4-6 2022.
(October 7, 2020) - Corriere Canadese