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Food and Language: Rhetorical-Cultural Excavations in Arab Heritage / الطعام والكلام: حفريات بلاغية ثقافية في التراث العربي
This seminar will be partly delivered Arabic with simultaneous translation to English.
Winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2025 for Literary and Art Criticism, Dr Said Laouadi, will be in conversation with Professor Michael Willis and Professor Eugene Rogan on his book ‘الطعام والكلام: حفريات بلاغية ثقافية في التراث العربي’ / ‘Food and Language: Cultural Excavations in Arab Heritage’ (2023).
Translation from Arabic to English will be provided by Taj Kandoura.
About the book:
Published in 2023, this work offers a critique of the complex relation between rhetoric and food in Arab heritage, analysing literary texts from poetry to proverbs and stories from a broad cultural perspective. With its in-depth analysis and broad scope, his research enriches rhetorical studies with new, unconventional approaches.
About the author:
Said Laouadi is a Moroccan academic and professor of rhetoric and discourse analysis at the Faculty of Arabic Language at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech, where he also serves as Vice Dean for Scientific Research and International Cooperation and heads the Laboratory for Methodological Integration in Discourse Analysis. Laouadi oversees the ‘Academic Picks’ programme, which hosts leading Arab researchers in critical and linguistic studies. Laouadi serves as a member of judging panels for several Arab and Moroccan literary awards, while also contributing to various specialised academic journals as an editor and reviewer. His research explores the intersection of rhetoric and culture, with notable publications such as ‘The Kitchen of the Novel: Food in Fiction from Visuality to Weaving’ (2024) and ‘Food and Language: Cultural Excavations in Arab Heritage’ (2023), along with studies on literature, imagery, and aesthetics in poetic discourse”.
Date:
30 October 2025, 17:00
Venue:
St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details:
Investcorp Lecture Theatre
Speaker:
Dr Said Laouadi (Cadi Ayyad University)
Organising department:
Middle East Centre
Organiser:
Middle East Centre Administrator (St Antony's College, University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
mec@sant.ox.ac.uk
Host:
Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, University of Oxford)
Part of:
Thursday Seminars (formerly Friday Seminars)
Booking required?:
Not required
Cost:
FREE
Audience:
Public
Editors:
Caroline Davis,
Jennie Williams
