Anthropology of Food

Prerequisite: A grade of C- or better in any WCIL 2 course or HON 1000; any introductory social science course.

The course focuses on the political economy of food, agriculture, and nutrition from a cultural and historical perspective at both the local and global or (“glocal”) levels. It explores local, national, and global food systems to answer puzzling questions such as: How does obesity in the U.S. link to “global” hunger? Why do people keep talking about “eating local,” “food sovereignty,” and “grass-fed beef”? At a time that we are producing more food than ever in history, why are there still starving people in the world? What does cultural history tell us about how and why we eat the way we do?

Credit: 3