ClassInfo

Dollar menu, Taco Tuesday, all you can eat sushi, and "fusion" food have been all the rage and part of society's food vernacular. But what do they mean for the individuals who prepare the food, eat the food, and sell the food? These are just several of the key questions this course aims to explore. Sociology is the study of the social world and how society is constructed, reconstructed, and maintained through patterns of social relationships and social interactions in everyday life. This course is built on the idea that food provides an excellent window and platform to investigate how such processes happen. This course takes a cross-cultural, historical, and transnational perspective to the study of the intertwining of food, culture, and politics. Several themes this course explores are the different social and cultural meanings attached to food, varying patterns in food consumption, the global food economy, labor in the food industry, and alternative methods of producing and consuming food.

The main objective of the course is to help you think sociologically about food. More specifically, to teach you how to think about food next time you go grocery shopping, where to go grocery shopping, how and why we eat the foods that we do, the political and cultural ramifications of eating traditional and fusion cuisine, and the political-economic impacts of the food/agricultural industry.

(a) Active participation in class discussions (50 points-20%)

(b) Food Problem assignment (10 points-4%)

(c) Ten Reading Responses (50 points-20%)

(d) Autoethnography of meal (50 points-20%)

(e) Three-part Policy Brief assignment (90 points total-20/20/50-for a total of 36%)

TOTAL Points: 250 points for the course.

We will be reading 60-90 pages a week on average (videos and documentaries are accounted for in this page estimate), so if that is too much reading for you, please look for another course. I expect you to do all of the readings all of the time. With that said, I have tried to look for straight forward readings to make the readings as simple as possible but I have also included news articles, youtube videos, and documentaries to supplement many of the readings as it will make the class more enjoyable than simply reading all day. Some days there will be an hour documentary to watch instead which is about equivalent to 30-40 pages of reading. There is not a required textbook for the course. Everything will be online. I will not have students buy material during a pandemic.

Below are the units that will be covered in class:

Unit 1: Cultures of Consumption