Advisor: Dr. Matt Childs

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Education: M.A. in Art History, University of South Carolina; B.A. in Architecture, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)

Bio:

 Helen B. Kampmann Marodin is a doctoral candidate specializing in Latin American history. In her dissertation, titled “The Experience of Taste in the Cauldron of the Three Races: A Biocultural Approach to Brazilian Cuisine,” she conceptualizes taste as an unpredictable force powerful enough to unsettle deep-rooted social and racial hierarchies. This project explores how food, as a mediator across social, racial, and gender divides, served as the arena where the social order was contested and reorganized during Brazil's transformative nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries.

Marodin employs an interdisciplinary approach that weaves food studies, sensory history, Brazilian history, and digital methodologies together. She uses digital text analysis to dissect a comprehensive collection of cookbooks published in Brazil between 1840 and 1945. Enhanced by insights from neuroscience, her work delves into the cognitive processes that shape taste perception, illuminating the connections between memory, emotion, and social identity within gustatory experiences. Through this comprehensive analysis, she demonstrates how culinary practices not only reflect but also actively shape the construction of national identity, unveiling the inclusionary and exclusionary processes inherent in this dynamic.