Cutting Tradition at the Sage in Gateshead for BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas

What is the place of religious traditions involving genital cutting in today’s world? How do we draw the line between parents’ rights and religious liberty on the one hand, and children’s rights on the other? These are very difficult questions...

I am going to attempt to answer them in only 13.5 minutes this Sunday (October 27) at the Sage in Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas. 

I am going to look at recent debates among medical ethicists and lawyers about male infant circumcision, performed on around one third of the world’s male population. I will explore what these debates reveal about the relationships between parents and children, religion and human rights, and the differences between male and female bodies.

The Politics of Food at SOAS

Last week, I facilitated a discussion and dinner on the Politics of Food on behalf of the Israel Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. We ate, we chatted, we ate some more, then we chatted some more...

Among other things, we discussed:

• Who “owns” hummus? And why might it matter?

• What is the role of cherished recipes in creating or sustaining national identity and cultural memory? 

• Why do stereotypes of the female home cook and male chef persist?

• How does conflict affect food, diets and health?

Attendees brought their own dishes and/or recipes, and shared their personal stories about what makes those dishes meaningful to them and their families. 

The event was partly inspired by two fabulous and informative cookbooks, published in 2012:

Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt's The Gaza Kitchen

Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem 

Several of the questions we discussed arose out of the conversations between El-Haddad, Schmitt and Ottolenghi in Bon Appétit magazine:

http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/gift-guides/article/the-gaza-kitchen-authors-talk-with-israeli-chef-yotam-ottolenghi

http://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/gift-guides/article/israeli-chef-yotam-ottolenghi-talks-with-the-gaza-kitchen-authors

The event was open, inclusive, critically engaged - and tasty!