Food in American Society and Culture

How do we define American food and how does food define Americans? What determines what we eat, how we eat it, and what we believe we should eat? How is food used to construct and declare ethnic, racial, regional, class, and gender identities? How have food and nutrition been employed as signifiers of social justice and injustice and as sites of political struggle? What issues inform current discussions of the economics of local, national, and global food production and consumption? What is meant by eating responsibly? This course will examine these and other related question currently animating food studies.