Faculty

Amy Bentley

Associate Professor of Food Studies

Phone: 212.998.5580
Email:

Amy Bentley is Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University. A historian with interests in the social, historical, and cultural contexts of food, she is the author of Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (University of Illinois, 1998), as well as several articles on such diverse topics as the politics of southwestern cuisine, a historiography of food riots, and the cultural implications of the Atkins diet.  She is currently working on two book-length projects, a history of food in the United States since World War II, part of Columbia University Press's Life in America since World War II series, as well as a cultural history of baby food.  Bentley is also co-founder of the Experimental Cuisine Collective, an interdisciplinary group of scientists, food studies scholars and chefs who study the intersection of science and food.  Professional activities include membership in the Association for the Study of Food and Society, where Bentley served as president from 2000 to 2002, as well as membership in the American Studies Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the American Historical Association. She serves on the editorial boards for the journals Food and Foodways, and Food, Culture and Society.


Degrees Held

  • Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania 1992
    American Civilization

Awards

  • 2009 : “The Experimental Cuisine Collective: Sustaining an Innovative Outreach Program in Chemistry.” National Science Foundation. Principal Investigator: Assoc. Prof. Kent Kirshenbaum, Dept. of Chemistry, New York University; Co-Investigator: Assoc. Prof. Amy Bentley
  • 2008 : Professional Development Award, Dean’s Office, Steinhardt School of Culture Education and Human Development
  • 2007 : Humanities Council Research Working Group Award, "Experimental Cuisine: The Kitchen as an Intersection of Science and the Humanities" (Co-director with Associate Professor Kent Kirshenbaum, Department of Chemistry, NYU)
  • 2007 : University Research Challenge Fund Award, "Experimental Gastronomy: The Kitchen as an Intersection of Research in Science and the Humanities" (Co-investigator with Associate Professor Kent Kirshenbaum, Department of Chemistry, NYU)
  • 2006 : Curricular Development Challenge Grant, New York University
  • 2000 : Steinhardt School of Education Research Challenge Grant, New York University
  • 1999 : Goddard Faculty Award, School of Education, New York University
  • 1999 : Curricular Development Challenge Grant, New York University
  • 1998 : Griffiths Research Award, School of Education, New York University
  • 1998 : Dean’s Fellowship in Human Nutrition, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University
  • 1997 : Winterthur Research Fellow, Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Winterthur, DE
  • 1997 : School of Education Research Challenge Grant, New York University

Publications

  • “Introduction” and Guest Editor, “Sweetness and Power: Rethinking Sidney Mintz’s Classic Work,” Food and Foodways, Vol. 16, No. 2(2008).
  • "The Politics on Our Plates." The Chronicle Review (Chronicle of Higher Education), Volume LIII, No. 8(October 18 2006): B13-B15. (link)
  • “Booming Baby Food: Infant Food and Feeding in Post-World War II America.” Michigan Historical Review 32:2(Fall 2006): 63-87.
  • “Feeding Baby, Teaching Mother: Gerber and the Evolution of Infant Food and Feeding Practices in the United States." In From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies, eds. Arlene Voski Avakian and Barbara Haber (University of Massachusetts Press, 2005): 62-88.
  • "Men on Atkins: Dieting, Meat, and Masculinity," in The Atkins Diet and Philosophy, eds. Lisa Heldke, Kerri Mommer, and Cynthia Pineo (Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court Press, 2005): 185-195.
  • "The Other Atkins Revolution: Atkins and the Shifting Culture of Dieting," Gastronomica 4, 3(August 2004): 34-45. (view)
  • "From Culinary Other to Mainstream American: Meanings and Uses of Southwestern Cuisine." In Culinary Tourism: Explorations in Eating and Otherness, ed., Lucy M. Long (University of Kentucky Press, 2004): 209-225.
  • "Islands of Serenity: The Icon of the Ordered Meal in World War II." In Food and Culture in the United States: A Reader, ed., Carol Counihan (Routledge, 2002):171-192.
  • "Reading Food Riots: Scarcity, Abundance, and National Identity." In Food, Drink and Identities, ed., Peter Scholliers (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2001): 179-183
  • "Inventing Baby Food: Gerber and the Discourse of Infancy in the United States." In Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies, eds. Warren Belasco and Phillip Scranton (Routledge, 2001): 92-112.
  • "Martha's Food: Whiteness of a Certain Kind," American Studies, 42:2 (Summer 2001): 5-29.
  • Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1998). (link)
  • "American Abundance Examined: David M. Potter's Paradox of Plenty and the Study of Food." Digest: An Interdisciplinary Study of Food and Foodways 15(1995): 20-24. (view)
  • "Uneasy Sacrifice: The Politics of United States Famine Relief, 1945-48." Agriculture and Human Values 11,4(1994): 4-18.

Courses

  • E33.3098: Doctoral Seminar
  • E33.2252: Global Food Cultures: Mexico
  • E33.2190: Research Methods
  • E33.2061: Research Applications
  • E33.2191: Food and Culture: Intensive Graduate Seminar in New Orleans
  • E33.2033: Food Systems I: Agriculture
  • E33.2012: Food History
  • E33.1180: Food and Nutrition in a Global Society
  • E33.1051:  Food and Society
  • E33.0071: Food Issues of Contemporary Societies

Research Interests

  • cultural and social histories of food
  • American cultural studies
  • twentieth-century United States history
  • theories of infant feeding
  • history of the baby food industry
  • discourses of dieting, nutrition and health in American culture
  • transnationalism and food
  • food events and media spectacles

Editorial Boards

  • Editor, The Cultural History of Food, Volume 6: The Modern Era, 1920-2000 (Berg Publishers, forthcoming)
  • Food, Culture and Society, Editorial Board Member
  • Food and Foodways: Exploration in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment, Editorial Board Member

Presentations

  • "Food Politics, Sustainability and Citizenship: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue," Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Washington, DC, 6 November 2009.
  • "New York University Food Studies: Sustainable Community Initiatives," University of Vermont, 10 September, 2009.
  • “State of the Field: Food History,” Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA, 26 March 2009.
  • “Ketchup As A Vegetable: Condiments, Culture, and the Politics of School Lunch,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, New York City, January 2009.
  • "Why We Eat What We Eat," Murray's Cheese, New York City, 12 January 2009.
  • “Taste” (with Anne McBride and Will Goldfarb of the Experimental Cuisine Collective), Bodies Exhibit, South Street Seaport, NYC, 21 February 2008.
  • Roundtable participant: “American Studies at the Intersection of Food and Health in America,” Association for the Study of Food and Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, June 2008.
  • “The Landscape of American Food,” NYU Alumni Association, 10 September 2008, NYU.
  • Panel member, "American Studies at the Intersection of Food and Health in America: Science, Policy and Culture,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, October 2008.
  • “Sweetness and Power: Rethinking Sidney Mintz’s Classic Work,” Putting Gender on the Table: Men, Women, and Food. Radcliffe Conference on Gender and Food, Cambridge, MA, 11 April 2007.
  • “American Food in the Depression and World War II,” at the America Eats Symposium hosted by the Culinary Historians of New York, 21 April 2007.
  • Keynote address: “Food Studies at NYU: Pleasures and Pitfalls.” Founding Food Studies conference at University of California, Davis, 3 May 2006.
  • “Tell Me What You Are: Food and Identity,” Annual Meeting of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), Dallas Texas, 14 April 2005.