Food and Identity in the Medieval World

(1 Credit Hour) · Undergraduate

This course will provide an introduction to the study of the Middle Ages through an examination of culinary history, customs, and foodways. Particular attention will be paid to food as a marker of class, ethnic, gender, and religious identity. The course will include a brief theoretical introduction to food studies by way of Claude Lévi-Strauss's culinary anthropology and Pierre Bourdieu's work on taste and class. Students will learn to analyze medieval primary sources through the combined critical lens of food studies and postcolonial theory.