Instructor: Melissa Girard
Course Description
In this course, we will investigate the concepts of food and eating. Because food is necessary for physical sustenance, it affects our lives on a daily basis. However, we don’t always take food seriously as an object of intellectual inquiry. In the United States, in particular, many people take food almost entirely for granted: they assume that it will always be available—that the grocery stores will remain full—but don’t question where their food comes from or where it will go once they are finished with it. In this course, we will learn to think “beyond the plate”: to understand the complex social, cultural, and political issues created by food and eating in the contemporary U.S. As the semester progresses, students will have considerable freedom to shape class discussions and to explore specific topics related to food and eating that most interest you.
