Dr Eleanor Barnett
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
- barnette2@cardiff.ac.uk
- 4.15, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
Overview
I am a historian of food and early modern religion.
As a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Cardiff, my research project is entitled 'Eating Exchanges: Food and Religious Encounter in the Early Modern World'. I aim, by exploring moments in which food was exchanged between people of different faiths, to better understand cross-cultural encounter: the divisions, inequalities, and friendships that shaped the early modern world. A focus on food exchange also helps to break down the Christian-centric interpretations of significant early modern processes including the Reformations, colonialism, and globalisation. My major research case studies are situated in the northeast coast of early America and the metropolitan city of Venice.
I am currently converting my PhD thesis into an academic book entitled The Reformation of Food, which exposes the role of food and eating in the division between Protestants and Catholics through the comparative case studies of England and Italy. My other major area of research is the history of food waste; my trade book Waste Not: A Kitchen History of Leftovers is under contract with Head of Zeus. With Katrina Moseley, I am editing a special issue of Global Food History, which is entitled 'Histories of Food Waste and Sustainabiltiy'.
My research in food history speaks to a wider audience and I am regularly involved in public-facing history initiatives and media interviews. Each day, as @historyeats on Instagram, I share food history facts, artwork, and objects to a wonderful community from across the world.
Biography
I have a recent PhD from Christ's College, the University of Cambridge, where I also completed an MPhil. Before that I was an undergraduate at the University of Warwick. After completing my PhD I held a brief fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC (unfortunately though under lockdown at home!), where my project was awarded an additional commendation by the Before ‘Farm to Table’ team. I also undertook a research project, entitled ‘Fast Food: Eating and Youth Culture in Britain, 1970 – 2000’ for the Museum of Youth Culture in collaboration with the IHR. This was subsequently turned into a feature wall display at the museum in London.
At Cambridge, I co-founded the AHRC-funded research group, 'Cambridge Body and Food Histories', as part of which I ran several international conferences. In the academic year 2020-21 I was a convenor of the IHR's Food History Seminar.