Food and Identity

Catalog description

Course focuses on how people use food to identify themselves as individuals & as groups. Students will ascertain the meaning & significance of food in different cultures by exploring the way that ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status & religion influence our food choices. In addition, they will also examine how people transmit & preserve culture using food. Through reading scholarly articles, personal essays, book excerpts, newspaper articles, cookbooks & viewing films, students will examine the intricate relationships that people have with food. Course looks critically at the following questions: how can food have different meanings & uses for different people? How does food function both to foster community feeling & drive wedges among people? What are some prevailing academic theories that help society understand some of these patterns of identification & how do societies change over time? Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society & Social Sciences for Steinhardt students.