Anthropology 1995: Food, Culture, and Society

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2014

Food is an entirely mundane but simultaneously elaborate aspect of human life, both pragmatic necessity and symbolic statement. This course examines how cultural systems of meaning and belief interact with social institutions and material reality. Lectures, films, discussions, fieldtrips, and ethnographic research assignments focus on the myriad ways in which food shapes (and reflects) identity (national, ethnic, religious, gendered, class-based), and how in turn how social institutions (from domestic units to the global food system) shape and transform food and its meanings, drawing on examples from many parts of the globe, both historically and contemporaneously.
Note: This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the Core area requirement for Social Analysis.