The Politics of Eating in America, Colonial Times to Present

3 units

From the starving time in colonial Jamestown to today's Fast Food Nation, food has been a subject and scene of fierce social and political contestation. This course explores the myriad, surprising ways, that Americans across the centuries have used food to mark class, gender, style, region, patriotism, dissent, politics, and personality. Topics include the Boston Tea Party, tavern culture and the American Revolution, African-American foodways, race and assimilation in regional food cultures, clay-eaters in antebellum America, the creation of food-regulation agencies in the late nineteenth century, Americanization of once :foreign foods, cooking as a gendered activity, military use of prepared food in World War II and in American homes after the war, and histories and politics of vegeterianism, of concepts of nutrition, of smoking, of obesity, dieting and eating disorders. This course is fully online. Only University College students may receive credit for fully online courses.