COURSES

FOOD, DRINK AND CULTURE ANTH:2140

Cynthia Chou

This course is all about the passion of food, eating and drinking in our lives. You will be challenged to study food and foodways in all its variety and importance in different contemporary cultures of the world. We shall explore: How and why food and drink hold the power to bind people together or to set groups apart How are national cuisines made? How do people connect food and drink to ritual and health care systems? These questions and many more will be linked with the study of food and foodways to examine societal processes such as the construction of identities and symbolic meanings attached to eating and drinking.

GLOBAL FOOD MIGRATIONS: COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, POLITICS IS:3550

Ari Ariel

Focusing on Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and migrant communities in the United States, this course will consider how food is related to ethnic and national identity, religion, class and gender. Among the questions we ask are: how do people use food to define themselves and the individuals and groups around them? How is culture transmitted through food? How does migration impact foodways – both for immigrant communities and for others in receiving countries? Why are some foods described as ‘ethnic’ while others are not? Is eating ever an act of cultural appropriation? Students will leave the course with an understanding of how food influences, and is influenced by, social, political and cultural factors.