Personal Details Form - Margaret Dorey
| Title | Ms |
| First name | Margaret |
| Last name | Dorey |
| Discipline / Department | School of Humanities / History |
| Institution | University of Western Australia |
| Highest qualification | Grad Dip Arts (History) |
| Date of qualification | 2005 |
| Email address | margaret.dorey@gmail.com |
| Web address | |
| Telephone | 0402 972 707 |
| Fax | |
| Mailing address | 17 Myrtle St PERTH WA 6000 |
| Thesis topic (for postgraduates) | Unwholesome for Man's Body?: English concerns about food purity and regulation c1600 - c1740 This study examines early modern English perceptions of the food they consumed. It will examine the way concerns about food purity and contamination are discussed in administrative and legal records from the courts of the victualling companies and the civic authorities, in addition to popular representations of food provision and concerns about food consumption and safety expressed in literary texts, newspapers and scientific discussions of the period. It seeks to question the assumption that concerns about food adulteration and contamination are a nineteenth century phenomenon and to examine the case for anxieties about food purity as an ongoing issue. It also seeks to determine how anxieties about the victualling trades and the food they sold related to, and were influenced by, broader social and moral anxieties of this time. |
| Current research interests | Food history, 17th and 18th century London, the food trades and Guild Companies, regulation and petty crime, regulating the food trades, ideas of contamination and purity, trust in food, perceptions of risk and danger, the place of food within early modern theories of health and medicine. |
| Past research interests | Food innovation and change, the arrival and reception of new ingredients, naming new foods and language shifts, perceptions of other cultures and their foods; early recipes; continuities and change in diet; gardening and horticulture; the herbals and herbalists; privacy and the home, architecture and the built environment, kitchens and cooking utencils; social relations between mistress and servants - particularly cook maids. My Graduate Diploma research dissertation, completed in 2005, was on "Innovation and change in diet: English perceptions of the fruits and vegetables from the Americas, 1492 to 1700." |
| Publications | 'Controlling corruption: Regulating meat consumption as a preventative to plague in Seventeenth-century London', Urban History, (2009, 36:1) - awarded a special commendation in the UWA 2009 Prizes for Higher Degree by Research Achievements |
| Recent grants | Dean's Postgraduate Award 2008 |
| Other relevant information | I am a past member of the Editorial Collective for Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies: http://www.limina.arts.uwa.edu.au. Limina is a refereed academic journal of historical and cultural studies based in the Discipline of History at The University of Western Australia. The journal operates with a special commitment to publishing the work of postgraduates and Early Career Researchers, and encourages creative methodologies. I am also a member of Slow Food and part of the Perth Convivium. I enjoy making cheese at home and giving home cheesemaking workshops. |
Comments (2)
Aug 15, 2007
Anne Elise Brumley says:
Hi! Thanks for the tip-off... that's actually great news, because I th...Hi! Thanks for the tip-off... that's actually great news, because I think Jonson does wonderful and strange things with food, though my interest is in the poetry so there's no overlap. I've always, always wanted to go to the Oxford Symposium, and haven't managed it so far. Have you ever been?
It's lovely to meet another academic-gastronome, though sadly one too far away to take to lunch any time soon. Drop me a line any time! - Anne
Aug 16, 2007
Anne Elise Brumley says:
Oh, well done you! I'd love to read your paper (if/when it's done lol&...Oh, well done you! I'd love to read your paper (if/when it's done lol!)