Food is always transformed symbolically through the social meanings and settings in which it is produced, consumed, and distributed. Food is truly at the cusp of nature and culture, being a requirement of life itself yet never without cultural constructions of meaning, and empathy. Food is the backbone of society and sociability, including equality, inequality, and enslavement. This course will focus on the study of food as a way to better understand human societies through economic, symbolic, historic, spiritual, and political lenses. We will explore how food is transformed by as well as transforms the human situation. To study this vast and ever-expanding subject, we will read and discuss a series of authors who have proposed theoretical perspectives or important examples on the study of food in society. We will focus on these theories of food in cultural life. The main approaches that we will explore are structuralism, taste, practice theory, food justice, food sovereignty, the body, memory, meaning, and embodiment.

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