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Academic Year 2003/2004

Culture and Cuisine
GOVT 105 SP

In a broad sense, cuisine--the culture of food--includes such things as the social institution of the restaurant and social practices of dining, the development of home economics and culinary professionalism, cookbooks and food writers (including MFK Fisher, Calvin Trillin, the Sterns, Paula Wolfert, and John Thorne) as a distinctive literary genre, attitudes and beliefs about health and diet, and many other things. Its breadth and impact on daily life makes cuisine an especially useful way of understanding popular culture and society. Food fashions and trends, for example, reflect larger social inclinations and changing understandings about such things as ethnic diversity, the role of women in society and at home, and assorted philosophies about health, diet (witness fear of food) and religion. Our exploration will range across a wide variety of materials, including scholarly books and articles, fiction good and bad, readings in popular journals and newspapers, films, and the Internet.

MAJOR READINGS

Arlene Voski Avakian, THROUGH THE KITCHEN WINDOW
Richard Klein, EAT FAT
Spadley & Mann, COCKTAIL WAITRESS
John Thorne, SERIOUS PIG
Gary Fine, KITCHENS

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

To be announced.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Among the particular topics we shall consider will be how cuisine reflects--and perhaps promotes--ethnic diversity and pluralism. Likewise, we shall want to explore how notions of haute cuisine and regional cuisines contribute to social stratification and geographic identity. In addition, we will want to use the concept of cuisine as a way of understanding changing gender and class roles in the United States. Finally, we will always be concerned with an overarching question: Is there an "American" cuisine? I suspect we will find that this question is just another way of asking: What is America? We shall see that processes of inclusion and exclusion, central to our collective and self-identity, lie at the heart of changing definitions of America a nd "American" food.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS GOVT    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2004

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