Courses

Of the 8 billion people on the planet today, only about 2 billion rely on supermarkets and grocery stores for their food. The remaining 6 billion rely on street vendors,
formal and informal food markets that take place on sidewalks, street corners, alleys, and parking lots. This course examines the cultural aspects and processes related to food provisioning, in a global context.

Scientific and sensory principles of food evaluation; professional methods, quality assurance, and objective experiments in advanced food preparation.

Scientific and sensory principles of food evaluation; professional methods, quality assurance, and objective experiments in advanced food preparation.

Students design, develop, conduct, analyze, and present an evaluative or applied research project in food studies. Projects may be peer-review research papers, white papers, curriculum development, business plans, book proposals, longform journalism, media projects or proposed creative projects. Should be taken in the last year of study in the master’s program. May be taken in one or two semesters.

The Food Studies Doctoral seminar is required for all Food Studies doctoral students from their first semester to their last. Food Studies doctoral students enroll each semester until the time of graduation (even for students conducting fieldwork outside of NYC). The doctoral students and faculty meet five times a semester for three hours. Students discuss their progress, read and discuss assigned readings, and give seminars on their research.

The core Food Systems course covers the US food system from an applied economic perspective, recognizing that the food system operates in a market. We begin by studying the mechanics of the different stages of the food system: farm, distribution, retailing and consumer. The course then turns to social and environmental costs of the food system. After covering the strengths and weakness of the food system, students explore topics such as sustainability, globalization, resiliency, consumer choice, and equity.

Focuses on a variety of issues surrounding food production from an agricultural and a processing perspective. Students will gain an understanding of the ideological underpinnings of American agriculture as well as the forces that transformed food production from a regional to a national system. Various approaches will be used to examine the food system including the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions of production.

This course combines practical lessons in writing for a popular audience with a bird’s eye view of the tradition of food writing; an engagement with craft; and a contemporary understanding of food’s place in our culture and politics. We address social trends and movements including political upheaval, racial and economic justice, gender and identity, and intense social change through writing about food. Students learn the publishing and editing process.

This course uses a multidisciplinary perspective to explore the question of how food influences human interaction. Students use primary research literature from neuroscience and behavioral biology as well as material evidence from the humanities to examine this central question through history across diverse civilizations and cultures.

This course is designed to put in perspective the interactions between culture, food systems, migration, and globalization, and how the interactions are impacting on the food security and nutrition of the people. The course will detail the culture and traditions (including changes over the years), food ways, the current food environment in Accra, and the drivers of the nutrition transition. This course will also help students to understand the importance of nutrition sensitive agriculture in
food systems, the impacts of urbanization / migration on these, and the
influence of government policies on the dynamics. The course also has a
field component which includes visits to a traditional ruler (to learn
about food culture and festivals), markets (traditional and modern), and
fast-food outlets/restaurants.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and
cultures of Berlin under conditions of globalization. How have produce,
people and animals interacted to make life possible in modern cities and
how have those interactions changed over time in Berlin's history? What
kinds of systems have been built to provide energy, bring potable water
into cities, take sewage out, and provide clean air?

As a course in new sensory urbanism this curriculum seeks to expand the
traditional scope and range of the studied senses from sight (e.g. art,
architecture) and sound (music), to smell, taste and touch, so as to
rethink what it means to be a modern urban subject engaged in the pleasures
and powers of consumption. Through lectures, readings, field trips students
will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food
cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and
cultures of Buenos Aires under conditions of globalization. A people's diet
is dependent on their geography, although no people on earth eat everything
edible in their environment, and they seek distant stimulants that their locales cannot support. Through lectures, readings, field trips students will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and cultures of Florence under conditions of globalization. A people’s diet is dependent on their geography, although no people on earth eat everything edible in their environment, and they seek distant stimulants that their locales cannot support. Through lectures, readings, field trips students will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food cultures and produce new
knowledge of the same.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and cultures of
London under conditions of globalization. A people’s diet is dependent on their geography, although no people on earth eat everything edible in their environment, and they seek distant stimulants that their locales cannot support. Through lectures, readings, field trips students will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and
cultures of Prague under conditions of globalization. A people's diet is
dependent on their geography, although no people on earth eat everything
edible in their environment, and they seek distant stimulants that their
locales cannot support. Through lectures, readings, field trips students
will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food
cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

This course will explore current transformations in the food systems and
cultures of Sydney under conditions of globalization. Through lectures,
readings and various activities, students will master established facts and
concepts about contemporary urban food cultures and produce new knowledge
about them. We will ask how produce, people and animals have interacted to
make life possible in Sydney and its surrounding suburbs broadly. We
question how those interactions have changed over time and the impact of
changing modes of food production, distribution, and preparation on human
health, knowledge systems, livelihoods, social relations, and the natural
environment. We also consider the built environment and the kinds of
systems that have been built to provide energy, portable water, provide
clean air and process waste.

Students taking this course are likely to be committed to an integration
between theory and practice. This could include: how you translate your
learning from the course into your everyday food practices; how your own
choices can improve the food chain; practical tips in cultivation;
campaigning through social movements and advocacy; setting up your own
projects, impacting policy and government programs and many more.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and
cultures of Tel Aviv under conditions of globalization and urbanization.
How have produce, people and animals interacted to make life possible in
modern cities and how have those interactions changed over time in Tel
Aviv's history? What kinds of systems have been built to provide energy,
bring potable water into cities, take sewage out, and provide clean air?

As a course in new sensory urbanism this curriculum seeks to expand the
traditional scope and range of the studied senses from sight (e.g. art,
architecture [Bauhaus in Tel Aviv, *The International Style; The White City*)
and sound (music), to smell, taste (the growing sense of new Israeli
cuisine and its export to the world) and touch, so as to rethink what it
means to be a modern urban subject engaged in the pleasures and powers of
consumption. Through lectures, readings and field trips students will
master established theories and concepts about contemporary urban food
cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

This course investigates current transformations in the food systems and cultures of Tulsa, Oklahoma under conditions of globalization. A people's diet is dependent on their geography, although no people on earth eat everything edible in their environment, and they seek distant stimulants that their locales cannot support. Through lectures, readings, field trips students will master established facts and concepts about contemporary urban food cultures and produce new knowledge of the same.

We explore the intersection of gender, sexuality, identity, culture and food. Students analyze sexual identity, human sexuality, sexual orientation and gender on real and perceived cultural views of food and consumption. Topics include how society assigns gender to food by investigating historical and contemporary texts. Employing advertisements, menus, cookbooks, TV, films and packaging, students
critically analyze gendering practices. Theoretical frameworks include queer theory, early feminist theory, Whiteness theory and male studies and transgender studies.

Not Available.