Students in two special topics courses offered through the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures attended the world summit of slow food, Terra Madre, in Turin, Italy Sept. 26–30.
Denise Caterinacci, senior instructor of Italian, and Jacqueline Nanfito, associate professor of Spanish, led students in ITAL 370: The Slow Food Movement and SPAN 370: Slow Food in Latin America on the trip.
The Eirik Borve Fund for Foreign Language Instruction funded six student travelers to this biennial, global event. The official languages were Italian, Spanish and English, conveying content in anthropology, economics, biology, environmental studies and more. There were reportedly 300,000 attendees at Terra Madre 2024.
Over 1,000 events, including speakers, workshops and tastings, were held.
Students have benefited from the collaborative approach offered through holding the two parallel courses this fall semester, and they were immersed in Italian and Spanish throughout the duration of the summit. Simultaneous interpreters in booths at each session provided several languages that attendees could listen to through headsets. There were abundant displays of Slow Food’s activities around the world. The overlapping disciplines and humanities-based activities, for which Slow Food has evolved into a worldwide initiative, were highlighted and celebrated.
Key speakers were Italians Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini and world-renowned physicist Federico Faggin, and American Slow Food School Gardens pioneer Alice Waters
Students in the courses are reading Petrini’s seminal books, Good, Clean and Fair and Food and Freedom, in the respective languages. Students of Spanish have learned about Petrini’s past collaborative work with acclaimed Chilean author and journalist Luis Sepulveda.
Students attended talks and activities of their individual preference and reunited each day to share their impressions. They were immersed in experiential learning about the multi-faceted features of this topic and the movement, along with putting their language skills to work. They had the opportunity to meet and interact with Petrini and many other speakers, producers, vendors, educators and delegates from around the world.