Exploring Food History and Culture

Summer Residential Program:
Exploring Food History and Culture

Course Length: Two Weeks
Dates: July 19 - July 31

Program Cost: $4,950

Associated Major: B.A. in Literature

This course will guide students on a sensory journey of United States history by delving into documents, narratives and multi-media explorations of Food Culture. The course will include mini-lectures on historical context followed by class discussions and small group activities that will enable students to explore how food issues illuminate historical events, how food traditions connect communities, and how food practices can highlight individual and collective identities like ethnicity, religion, gender, class and regionality.

The course will culminate in a project where each student presents to the class an analysis of a food tradition that demonstrates its social and personal significance. The course will underscore skill building in close reading, writing with a thesis, communication and critical analysis. Content will be drawn from American Appetites: A Document Reader edited by Jennifer Jensen Wallach and Lindsey R. Swindall (University of Arkansas Press, 2014).