November 11, 2025
Ben Zeller opens Princeton workshop on faith and food
Professor Ben Zeller (right) and Afe Adogame, the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Religion and Society at Princeton Theological Seminary. | Submitted photo
This past month, Ben Zeller, the Irvin L. and Fern D. Young Presidential Professor of Religion, delivered the opening keynote address at the Faith and Food Workshop, held at Princeton Theological Seminary. The workshop explored how belief, culture, and culinary traditions shape human flourishing.
Organized by an international team of scholars and led by Afe Adogame, the Maxwell M. Upson Professor of Religion and Society at Princeton Theological Seminary, the event brought together nearly fifty scholars working on topics including sustainable agriculture, health and nutrition, migration, postcolonial African food production, politics, and theology.
“It was a pleasure to open the workshop and suggest themes that bring together participants.” —Ben Zeller
Zeller’s keynote, “Thinking about Method in the Study of Religion and Food,” used the model of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to encourage participants to highlight relationality in their work.
“It was a pleasure to open the workshop and suggest themes that bring together participants, which included historians, theologians, ethnographers, cookbook authors, and plant scientists,” Zeller said.
An American historian of religion and author, Zeller is the past chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Religion and Food program unit, co-editor of Religion, Food, and Eating in North America, and co-editor of the forthcoming Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Food.