Global Spice Trade Histories: Migration, Foodways and Empire

Undergraduate / Graduate

This project-based course on the global history of the spice trade seeks to disentangle and reweave the culinary, economic and political threads that hold the trade's 3500-year histories in place. It will focus on creative forms of visual mapping and more traditional research methodologies to capture the imperial and economic intersections linking the historical movement of spices and contemporary foodways with human migrations. Student projects will include hands on work in various sites of spice history in Paris and elsewhere in Western Europe, including botanical gardens, markets, restaurants, libraries and archives. The course and its method are in part informed by co-instructor visual artist Tiffany Chung's ongoing project on spices.