Visiting PhD Scholar Mallory Rose Cerkleski

Mallory Cerkleski (she/her) is a doctoral candidate in History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, working under the supervision of Dr. Silvio Pons. She is currently a visiting scholar in the History department at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, where she works with Prof. Kama Maclean. Her dissertation, provisionally titled “From Scarcity to Selectivity: A People’s History of Food Rationing in Kerala, 1939–1997,” examines how infrastructures of food provisioning in twentieth-century Kerala shaped everyday consumption, political consciousness, and domestic labor. Drawing on oral histories and archival materials, her work uses rationing as a lens through which to understand the making of welfare citizenship in postcolonial India. As a historian of food, Mallory uses food to understand history, and history to understand food, approaching eating, scarcity, and memory as intertwined archives of social and political life.

Before beginning her PhD in 2023, Mallory completed an M.A. in Food History and Anthropology at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, where her thesis in the History department was titled “Multifaceted Memories: Oral Histories of Cuban Citizens on Food, Justice, and Future Imaginaries." She also holds dual B.A. degrees in Sustainable Food Systems and Political Science from Guilford College (USA).

Mallory has taught Italian Food and Wine History as an adjunct professor at the University of Padova (Fall 2024) and has held a visiting fellowship at the Centre for Development Studies (Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala) from February 2025-April 2025. Beyond her research, she serves on the board of the Graduate Association for Food Studies (GAFS), is co-editor of the Graduate Journal of Food Studies (GJFS), and organizes the collaborative book project Culinary Chronicles: Oral Histories of Food, Mobility, and Belonging.

She shares her research and reflections at savoringtheages.owlstown.net and on Instagram @savoringtheages.