The University’s Essex Management Centre, part of the Essex Business School, is hosting a two-day conference on Taste at the Southend Campus.

Forming part of a week-long doctoral workshop, the Taste conference has attracted speakers from Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany. It forms part of a series of conferences on the senses hosted by Utrecht, Copenhagen and Essex, with previous events looking at Hearing, Sight and Sound.

Professor Heather Hopfl, from the Essex Business School, explains: ‘The word “taste” has many connotations. Of course, it means to taste and to savour but also to discern difference, to apply aesthetic appreciation and to have an experience that is just a brief episode, as a sample of the fuller experience. Whether of the mouth or the eye, taste almost always calls to mind a question of judgement. A dead cow in formaldehyde is likely to be in poor taste unless it is the work of Damien Hirst in which case it would be “art”. It is a matter of taste!’

This provides a starting point for the conference, which will include a tasting session with foods like olives and cheese, plus papers on the consumption of offal and taste in bathroom design.

The doctoral workshop, which runs all this week, includes presentations from University staff from both Colchester and Southend.

Ends

Notes to editors:
The doctoral workshop at the University’s Southend Campus runs from Monday 3 November to Friday 7 November. The Taste conference is 9am to 4.45pm on Tuesday 4 November and Wednesday 5 November.