The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: Technology, History, and Justice

Catalog description

This course examines everyday food practices as a site of politics where culture, technology, history, and issues of ethics and justice intersect. Through a survey of academic, journalistic, and artistic works on food and eating, the course explores key analytical frameworks and conceptual tools in STS, including the politics of technology, classification and identity, the reproduction of inequality, ethical and responsible innovation, and the nature/culture boundaries. Topics covered include: the industrialization of agriculture; globalization and local foodways; food justice and ethics; more recent technologies in food practices (e.g., biotechnology, AI, alternative proteins); health and diet trends; and food and global challenges (e.g., climate change, war). Through food as a window, the course pursues two broad intellectual goals. First, students will examine various theoretical and methodological approaches in STS and related fields (e.g., anthropology, history, sociology). Second, students will develop a set of basic skills and tools for their own critical thinking and empirical research, and design and conduct independent research on a food-related topic of their interest.