SUNY Potsdam

New York State Sociological Association Keynote Address
Peter Menzel & Faith D’Aluisio
Friday, Oct. 19th at 7:30 p.m.
Snell Theatre
SUNY Potsdam
Free and Open to the Public

"The World on a Plate: A Global Photographic Feast" is a fast-paced slide lecture examining the implications of the modern diet for our personal health and for our planet. The presentation includes hundreds of images and personal stories from scores of countries covered in the award-winning books by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio: What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets; Hungry Planet: What the World Eats; and Man Eating Bugs: The Art & Science of Eating Insects.

Peter Menzel is a freelance photojournalist known for his coverage of international feature stories on science and the environment. His award-winning photographs have been published in GEO, Stern, Le Figaro, Der Speigel, Paris Match, Focus, Muy Interesante, El Pais, National Geographic, Smithsonian, the New York Times Magazine, and Time.

He has received a number of World Press and Picture of the Year awards. Faith D’Aluisio is a former award-winning television news producer. She is the editor and lead writer for the book-publishing imprint Material World Books. The couple lives in the United States in Napa, California. They have four sons: Josh, Jack, Adam and Evan.

In 1994 Peter Menzel created the bestselling book Material World, A Global Family Portrait, (Sierra Club Books). This epic work of photojournalism focused on the material possessions and daily lives of average families around the world (see below for a few examples).This was followed by Menzel and D’Aluisio’s first collaboration, Women in the Material World (Sierra Club Books, 1996). This book explored the lives of women around the world, and builds upon the documentary work of Material World: A Global Family Portrait to which D’Aluisio contributed.

Menzel and D’Aluisio’s book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (Material World Books, Ten Speed Press, 2005)—is another around-the-world exploration of average daily life—this time focusing on food in 24 countries.

The authors detail each family’s weekly food purchases and the total cost, and use thought-provoking interviews. The centerpiece of each chapter is a portrait of the entire family surrounded by a week’s worth of groceries. The couple won the coveted James Beard Best Book Award in 2006 for Hungry Planet, and in 2005 received Book of the Year for the volume from the Harry Chapin World Hunger Media Foundation.

Menzel and D'Aluisio's newest book, What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets (Material World Books, 2010)— is a photographic journey across 30 different countries that shows us what 80 individuals eat on a typical day. Through Menzel and D'Aluisio's evocative narrative style and exceptional photojournalism What I Eat shines a beam of light into the pantries of ordinary individuals, revealing a lot about their culture, economy and way of life.

* Biography information from www.menzelphoto.com