What Makes a Meal: Anthropological Explorations of Food Production, Consumption, and Performance

3 units

In this course, we explore what we eat, how we eat it, and why we eat it through an anthroplogical lense. Food is important in many ways. It is a key component is our daily lives and habits. Exploring foodways through an anthropological lens allows us to understand the construction of boundaries and expressions. Food is not just nutrition, it is also taste, memory, politics, ritual, communication, and power. Food has the ability to change the very nature of our genetics. Food is comfort and home while simultaneously is novel and uncomfortable. It heals and it destroys. Through the semester, we will learn how anthropologists study food and foodways, highlighting the socio-cultural, linguistic, biological, and archaeological frameworks. We will learn how different communities interact with food and how foodways can shape and be shaped by the societies we live in, especially the power of food in shaping our modern world systems.