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Month: June 2012

Students new to Perugia may be curious about the comically large concrete blocks  or the abstract white house that seem to have fallen from the sky onto the center streets of the small city.

These temporary additions are part of Festarch, the fourth annual international architecture festival, which began Thursday morning. This year’s festival runs June 7-10; the theme is “Cities Within the City.”

“Each year, each month, many new cities are born inside the consolidated city,” states a pamphlet from “Abitare,” the architecture publication that produces each year’s festival. It lists examples: “Slums, favelas, townships, but also health, technology, or cultural districts, entire districts settled after big events, new towns, gated communities.”

The goal of Festarch 2012 is to identify formal and political solutions to facilitate the growth of these smaller “cities” while maintaining the flow of the city’s infrastructure. The festival also emphasizes the importance for European cities, particularly in Italy, to incorporate these changes inherent to contemporary life – like the increasing need for large parking lots, airports, and commercial/military areas – into the city without hurting the architecture inherent to their cultures.

Through Sunday afternoon, Festarch is presenting a variety of lectures by internationally acclaimed architects, linguists, city managers, and many other specialists, all proposing solutions to these issues.

For a schedule of the events in English, pick up a pamphlet at one of the many information points stationed along Corso Vannucci or visit the Festarch website.

Acclaimed professors from across the world are trickling into the Umbra Institute today to collect their badges and informational packets for Food Conference: Perugia. A welcome aperitivo on the Ranieri Foundation’s picturesque terrace will officially commence the first-time international food conference tonight.

Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific, will give the keynote address early Friday morning at the University of Perugia. Albala has published numerous respected works on food studies, varying from “Eating Right in the Renaissance”to “Beans: A History.” Fittingly, his speech will serve as an introduction to the two-day conference.

Held at the Umbra Institute’s building on Via Bartolo, the conference will use the broad topic of food as a lens to analyze the last 150 years of Italian history and cultural identity, according to the event organizers, Umbra Food Studies Professor Zach Nowak and Italian Professor Elgin Eckert.

In the last 150 years, there has been much discussion of seemingly contradictory trends in Italy, including the need for unification beyond the political, the promotion of regional differences, and the simultaneous encouragement of immigration and emigration. Key to this discussion is the question of identity, which is often expressed through tradition, especially in food. However, tradition is itself often recently created. 

In a call for papers from their colleagues, Nowak and Eckert posed the question: “How can tradition, or the invention thereof, help or hinder processes of cultural and political integration?”

The conference is free and open to the public; Nowak and Eckert encourage Umbra students to take advantage of the opportunity. Visit Food Conference: Perugia for a detailed schedule of the conference.

This weekend, the Umbra Institute welcomed two new groups of summer 2012 students with a whirlwind orientation to Perugian life.

Friday, Chapman University and Intensive Italian students flew into Rome and took a bus with Umbra staff up to Perugia. After checking into their rooms at Hotel Giò, the groups mingled, exploring the city, and returned to the hotel just in time for a classic Italian four-course meal with Umbra staff and faculty.

Saturday found the students moving into their new apartments, renting cell phones, and finally sitting in plush green chairs in the Oratoria Santa Cecilia for an orientation meeting – made complete by Officer Michele Canneschi’s infamous safety talk.

Everyone continued to settle in and explore on Sunday. Addy – or Harry, according to Canneschi – led small groups of students on practical walking tours, pointing out necessities of Perugian life from the post office on Via Mazzini to the closest stop for the adorable Minimetrò to the secret bakeries on Via dei Priori.   

After this action-packed weekend, students are already in their first day of classes.

Buona lezione!

Oaky or stony? Aged or young? Tannic or steel?

Umbra students learned the meaning of these terms during the summer’s first wine tasting Thursday evening at Énonè, a popular Perugian enoteca.

After describing the process of making wine, sommelier Silvia Bartolini guided students in visual, olfactory, and taste analyses of three Italian wines.

“Let’s see: it looks like wine, smells like wine, and tastes like wine,” one student laughed before sampling her first glass. “I’m not exactly a wine expert.”

By the end of the wine tasting, she could swirl, sniff, and sip like the best of them.

After each wine’s initial critique, Bartolini encouraged students to sample an array of appetizers and determine which best complement the wine. Students paired pâté on toast with a firm red wine, a crisp white wine with frittata, and sweet wine with a variety of cheeses.

Bartolini then showed students the appropriate glass for the appropriate drink, from wine to water to whiskey. At the end of the evening, the group walked back up the winding steps of San’Ercolano, ready to impress all future dinner party guests.