11th CI Forum Two on “Edible Narratives: The Interplay of Food, Culture, and Identity”
On Thursday, March 6, 2025, the Department of English and Humanities at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh hosted its second forum of the Curriculum Integration program on the theme “Edible Narratives: The Interplay of Food, Culture, and Identity.” The CI Program is designed to help students of the department make connections between their course contents and real-world issues or topics. In the second forum, the speaker was Prof. Mahmud Hasan Khan of the Department of English and Modern Languages and Executive Director of Shasheen Center for Multilingual Excellence, Independent University Bangladesh.
Prof. Khan introduced food as “one of the crucial objects of any culture,” mentioning how it has the quality of carrying elite authenticity and discussed how factors such as colonization, migration as well as globalization, influence the culture that surrounds food. He focused on how food can have linguistic implications.
The next part of the forum involved a humorous discussion on restaurant menus in different countries using food as a means to show high status through multimodal elements. He used numerous menus as examples, which sparked interest amongst faculty members and attendees. He also addressed how some of these restaurants seek the use of empty signifiers which do not utilize or glorify cultures, but only make individuals question the true meaning or intention behind such names. Prof. Khan also discussed the recent increase in the use of Macaronic language in the context of Bangladeshi restaurant scenes and hinted that this could be done to create a clear class distinction between different types of customers.
Prof. Khan then went on to discuss the idea of locavorism and its popularity in recent times. He raised the crucial question of how much authenticity is actually enough until it borders on conservatism. He also highlighted the different aspects of sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and socio-international progress in food culture. Using examples from “pahari foodscape,” he further explored the topic of food culture in Bangladesh.
Prof. Khan then asked how these food descriptions are created and whether the restaurant owners are aware of the customers’ knowledge or not. He put emphasis on such people or businesses better articulating their narrative.
The forum ended with an engaging Q & A session involving several interesting questions and amusing anecdotes from faculty members and students. Finally, a gift was presented to Prof. Khan by Prof. Kaiser Haq, Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, ULAB, followed by a photo session with the DEH faculty members.
The program was hosted by Mr. Al Mahmud Rumman, Senior Lecturer, who was the organizer of the Spring 2025 Curriculum Integration Program, with Ms. Irtifa Hasan, Lecturer, DEH.
Report by Tarannum Ahmed (231013042)
The full discussion is available on the DEH YouTube Channel.
