Course focuses on how people use food to identify themselves as individuals & as groups. Students will ascertain the meaning & significance of food in different cultures by exploring the way that ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status & religion influence our food choices. In addition, they will also examine how people transmit & preserve culture using food. Through reading scholarly articles, personal essays, book excerpts, newspaper articles, cookbooks & viewing films, students will examine the intricate relationships that people have with food. Course looks critically at the following questions: how can food have different meanings & uses for different people? How does food function both to foster community feeling & drive wedges among people? What are some prevailing academic theories that help society understand some of these patterns of identification & how do societies change over time?
Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society & Social Sciences
This course unites the liberal arts experience with a specialization in food and nutrition. It contains three areas of focus: food and nutrition history; ethical issues in food and nutrition; and emerging technologies as they related to food and nutrition.
Food is all around us. It influences who we are and how we related to our surroundings. This course explores food in the city from multiple points of view. Students observe and analyze various aspects of food in the city, from personal experiences to large social issues such as gentrification and food insecurity, and examine the cultural, social, and political aspects of food systems. Students acquire familiarity with basic ethnographic skills and methods such as interviews, observations, visual ethnography, and virtual ethnography
Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Society & Social Sciences.
The goal of this course is to analyze the consumer side of food markers and related policy using tools of microeconomic analysis. In the first half of the course theoretical tools are developed, starting from individual choice and moving up to market demand. In the second part of the course, the focus shifts to applications of consumer economic theory in the food system, and how policies can alter consumer behavior.
The course provides students with an intermediate level understanding of the microeconomics of firm or business behavior, & to apply these tools to current policy issues in the food system. Students explore the effect of firm decision-making on size, scale, & scope, & apply the tools to firms in the food sector. A range of outcomes is explored: free market, firm self regulation, socially responsible firm behavior, shared value firm behavior, & government regulation. The course is designed for policy & food interested students with little as well as no background in economics, or for those who have completed an introductory course that used a text on par with Krugman & Wells.
Development of new concepts in food business operations through planning, organization, implementation, and evaluation of independent and multiunit operations: concept development, initiation, financing, site selection, franchising and analysis and control of risk.
Examination of food and diets from historical and international perspectives. Considers the origins of foods- the co-evolution of world cuisines and civilizations- the international exchange and spread of food technologies following the voyages of Columbus - and the effects of the emergent global economy on food production- diets- and health.
The ways in which writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers have used food as a theme or symbol for reasons of aesthetic, social, cultural, or political commentary.
The ways in which writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers have used food as a theme or symbol for reasons of aesthetic, social, cultural, or political commentary.
This course focuses on the role design plays in framing the food environment, from production to consumption and explores how designers influence and shape stakeholders in the food system. Students investigate the interaction of users with designed places, objects, sensorial experiences as well as ideas, services, and systems and learn to analyze the built/material work.
This course will explore food messaging and representation in moments of crisis, both historically and also in our current COVID-19 moment. Employing multiple lenses including ethical, political, communal, and individual, we’ll examine such topics as medieval religious aestheticism/asceticism, World War II propaganda, global notions of food waste, the ethos of food sharing and commensality, and media messaging in the contemporary COVID moment.
The ways in which writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers have used food as a theme or symbol for reasons of aesthetic, social, cultural, or political commentary.
This course will explore food messaging and representation in moments of crisis, both historically and also in our current COVID-19 moment. Employing multiple lenses including ethical, political, communal, and individual, we"ll examine such topics as medieval religious aestheticism/asceticism, World War II propaganda, global notions of food waste, the ethos of food sharing and commensality, and media messaging in the contemporary COVID moment.
This course critically analyzes foods" portrayal across media platforms. We unpack how the media influences taste, purchases, and food beliefs; how it develops characters by what they eat and drink; and how it creates trends and movements. We explore cooking as entertainment, food shopping as a personal statement, and how media intersects with class, gender and racial tropes. Beginning with theory and moving through print, television, film, and the internet, students have hands-on experience interacting with the messages that define American food culture.
Issues related to methods of food production, distribution, marketing, trade and politics, and the impact of these methods on foods intake and the environment in contemporary societies.
Overview of legal issues affecting food service management: laws- contracts- taxes- and relations with administrative and regulatory agencies- both domestic and international.
This course examines the legal and regulatory frameworks that underlie domestic food policy. Specific areas of emphasis are the jurisdictions of federal and state agencies, the role of the legislative bodies in creating policy, and the role of the judicial system in enforcing policies and regulations.
Organization and management of commercial and institutional food service facilities in hotels, restaurants, and educational and community program sites.
Explores the conceptual underpinnings of the distributive networks through which food travels from farm to table. Examines the relationships between markets, states, and society in their historical and contemporary forms. Employs case studies of how commodities travel through the food system at the local, national and international levels. Topics include mass markets and niche markets; the culture of markets; reciprocity, exchange and redistribution; conventional and alternative supply chains.
Food safety, processing, and regulatory issues related to the role of microorganisms in food processing and preservation. The use of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) to prevent contamination of food, equipment, and personnel.
