Radical Fermentation Dialogue Series

This series brings together coordinators of the DHI transcollege research cluster Radical and Relational Approaches to Fermentation and Food Sovereignty for interdisciplinary dialogue about fermentation science, Indigenous food sovereignty, performance, feminist science studies, and radical/relational approaches to fermentation. We invite participants with interests in these topics from across campus to join the series and build a research community.

Our fermented food and food sovereignty discourse and praxis are guided by the following questions: What are fermented foods? What is the current state of knowledge about the contents of those foods and their impacts on our diet and health? What is the significance of radical and relational perspectives in food science research? How are Indigenous fermented foods represented across different disciplines and how might we critically address issues such as sub/conscious bias? Whose stories matter and who decides? Instead of proposing singular truths or facts, this cluster invites participants and audiences to consider the existence of multiple simultaneous truths, all of which are culturally constructed, performed, and in some cases politicized and policed.

Each event will feature a presentation of one scholar’s work, followed by a dialogue led by another research cluster member and questions from event participants.

Thursday March 11, 11:00am - 12:00pm 

Dr. Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann, project leader at Greenland Center for Health Research at the University of Greenland, Ilisimatusarfik (Visiting Carlsberg Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences) in dialogue with Jessica Bissett Perea.

Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann is an Inuk [Inuit from Greenland] microbiologist (University of Copenhagen 2012) with specialty in Arctic metagenomics. After acquiring her Ph.D. in metagenomics from the Technical University of Denmark, she moved back to Greenland to lead the research project The Greenland Diet Revolution at the University of Greenland. The project is focused on understanding the microbial importance of Indigenous Greenlandic foods prepared in nature. Currently Aviaja is a postdoctoral fellow at the Marco Lab at UC Davis, where she is researching Indigenous fermented foods from Greenland and the Greenland gut microbiome.

Thursday February 25, 11:00am - 12:00pm

Dr. Stephanie Maroney, Mellon Public Scholars Program Manager at UC Davis Humanities Institute (College of Letters and Sciences) in dialogue with Maria Marco. 

Stephanie Maroney is a feminist science and food studies scholar creating collaborative projects on fermentation and mycology. Her current research explores both ferment and mycelium as methods for making new knowledge(s) and relations. She has published articles broadly on the sociocultural impact of human microbiome science, including the topics of queer fermentation praxis, the colonial afterlife of microbiome science, and healthism in probiotic dietary culture. She has a PhD in Cultural Studies and administers the Mellon Public Scholars program (a community-engaged arts and humanities research program) at UC Davis.

Thursday February 11, 11:00am - 12:00pm

Dr. Jessica Bissett Perea, Assistant Professor of Native American Studies at UC Davis (College of Letters and Sciences) in dialogue with Stephanie Maroney. 

Jessica Bissett Perea is a Dena’ina [Alaska Native] musicologist and assistant professor of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. Her research centers critical Native American and Indigenous studies approaches to music, sound, and performance studies; Critical race, Indigeneity, gender, and feminist studies; Arts and activism in North Pacific and Circumpolar Arctic communities; and Relational studies of Indigenous and Black experiences in the Americas. Her first monograph Sound Relations: Native Ways of Doing Music History in Alaska (forthcoming 2021) will appear in the “American Musicspheres” series published by Oxford University Press. In fall 2021 she will co-teach “Radical Storywork: Performing Food Sovereignty through Inuit Fermentation Culture” with Professor Maria Marco, which advances Inuit knowledges and performing arts processes as a means to unsettle and expand dominant modes of knowledge production in food science research.

Thursday January 28, 11:00am - 12:00pm

Dr. Maria Marco, Professor of Food Science and Technology at UC Davis (College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences) in dialogue with Aviaja Lyberth Hauptmann.

Professor Maria Marco is a microbiologist with expertise in fermented foods, probiotics, and the human microbiome. Dr. Marco’s research is investigating the microorganisms and processes responsible for making fermented foods and elucidating how foods and probiotic bacteria impact human health. Dr. Marco is leading international efforts to increase shared knowledge on fermented foods, including recognition of the central roles these foods have in traditional diets. In fall 2021 she will co-teach “Radical Storywork: Performing Food Sovereignty through Inuit Fermentation Culture” with Professor Jessica Perea, which advances Inuit knowledges and performing arts processes as a means to unsettle and expand dominant modes of knowledge production in food science research.