Mark Anthony Arceño, Ph.D.

I am the Academic Program Coordinator in the Ohio State Department of Comparative Studies, as well as a recent graduate of the Department of Anthropology doctoral program. I am the advisor to the Comparative Studies Graduate Student Group; the Ohio State APOP Lecture Series Team Leader; the Chapter Leader of Slow Food Columbus; the editor of the Culture & Agriculture 'Sensorium'; and an Ohio Wines VIP Ambassador (see pg. 6).

Philippine-born and Metro-Detroit raised, I earned my B.A. from Albion College, where I majored in French and international studies, and concentrated in ethnic studies and public policy and service. In particular, the time I spent off campus was central to my development as a scholar and global nomad. I studied and conducted independent ethnographic research throughout South Africa, which I used to complete my Honors thesis addressing the then-upcoming English translation of the Roman Missal and its effect on members of South Africa’s multiethnolinguistic Catholic population. That said, most of my international experience is in France, where I studied in Paris and interned at AFS Vivre Sans Frontière, have co-/led high school summer programs, and conducted an ethnographic exploratory study on halal food consumption.

From 2010-2013, I worked at Denison University as its first Program Coordinator in the Office of Multi-Cultural Student Affairs. Alongside committee and programmatic work, I developed new initiatives including a number of food and culture programs. From 2015-2016, I worked at the Bob Evans corporate campus as its Product Development Coordinator.

Using the French notion of terroir as a conceptual framework, my fieldwork investigates place-based wine production in Ohio, USA, and Alsace, FRA, to examine how winegrowers understand and respond to changes in their landscapes amid times of change. I completed the French portion of my dissertation research as a Humanities and Social Sciences "Make Our Planet Great Again" Chateaubriand Fellow, which is sponsored by the Cultural Services of the Embassy of France. My previous Master's work focused on pictorial representations of food-based dietary guidelines.

I emphasize the importance of “learning through food,” i.e., learning about ourselves and each other through the foods we consume; the recipes which have been passed down, shared, and adapted over time; and the evolving meanings of meals and conviviality. Recently, I began a companion Page, titled Learning through Wine.