ANTHR 2450

The Anthropology of Food and Cuisine

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2015-2016.

You are what you eat! This course examines the way food is produced, prepared, exchanged, presented, and given meaning in cultures around the world. It examines the symbolism of specific foodstuffs. Who prepares food and how is it done? Who feeds whom and how these relations are expressed and valued? In addition to looking at these questions we analyze ideas about commensality; how food is used in public contexts for presentation or exchange, and how food is a marker of gender, class, status, ethnicity, and identity. In addition to looking specifically at food, we analyze cultural ideas about gender, the body, and identity in terms of how these cultural patterns are produced and expressed through concrete activities like eating, fasting, and special diets. In this class we stress critical and comparative thinking about subjects we tend to take for granted.

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (GB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS)

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