Join our book release celebration and discussion with Paul Minnis on his new book, Famine Foods: Plants We Eat to Survive.
When: Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time
This free online book release celebration and discussion is part of our Spring 2021 Event Series via Zoom. Registration is required.
Minnis will be joined by University of Victoria Emeritus Professor, Nancy Turner, an ethnobotanist whose research integrates the fields of botany and ecology with anthropology, geography and linguistics, among others. She is interested in the traditional knowledge systems and traditional land and resource management systems of Indigenous Peoples, particularly in western Canada.
In his new book, ethnobiologist Paul Minnis includes fourteen short case studies that examine the use of alternative foods in human societies throughout the world, from hunter-gatherers to major nations.
When environmental catastrophes, war, corrupt governments, annual hunger seasons, and radical agricultural policies have threatened to starve populations, cultural knowledge and memories of food shortages have been crucial to the survival of millions of people. Famine Foods dives deeply into the cultural contexts of famine food use, showing the curious, strange, and often unpleasant foods people have turned to in order to get by. There is not a single society or area of the world that is immune to severe food shortages, and gaining a deeper knowledge of famine foods will be relevant for the foreseeable future of humanity.
To register, please go here.