Featured Course
Food for Thought
Level: College - second-third year
Focus: food studies/interdisciplinary
Competency: critical thinking, online learning and communication skills
In a Nutshell: Turn an ethnographic eye on our own food-related beliefs and practices
Why I Developed This Course
Food-getting, -preparation and -sharing are fundamental to human life and have been driving factors for human social behavior for millennia. Food is not only good to eat, but good to think, as Claude Levi-Strauss once said. It's a complex of ideas and beliefs, customs and practices, with a wide range of effects on every aspect of our lives. Besides, who doesn't like to talk about food? These factors make food an ideal topic to apply and practice ethnographic thinking.
Reading List
There are many ways of teaching food. In the current version of my course, I emphasize analytical and reflective consideration of our own food-related practices and beliefs.
Food and Society, 2nd ed. by Amy Guptill, Denise Copelton and Betsy Lucal, which provides a conceptual framework for the study of food in society. They begin with the ultimate sociological question that they call "the individual-society paradoxes" and situate food at the intersection of many conflicting influences and global power dynamics.
Food and Culture, 2nd ed., edited by Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik, features articles by a variety of authors, each of whom focuses on a specific cultural situation and provides detailed ethnographic analysis. This is a handy resource to expose students to many different ways in which food can be studied in a wide range of social, cultural and historical contexts. I usually don't read every article, but rather, let students pick a set of articles that match their own areas of interest (see Course Structure).
"8 Job Skills to Succeed in A Post-Coronavirus World" by Bernard Marr on Forbes.com was a very useful - and real - way to let students know that they can be using online course experience to build useful skills for professional development. This reading was tied to a series of skill-building exercises that asked each student to set their own goals and self-evaluate their progress during the semester.
Course Objectives
I incorporate instructions and activities that address intellectual contents on: critical cultural analysis, self-reflection, media analysis, technology-mediated teamwork, and effective presentation skills.
Critical Cultural Analysis - It is often a challenge to get students to think analytically about a familiar topic like food, which makes it all the more important to provide explicit instructions on how to apply an ethnographic perspective to consider the details of mundane everyday thoughts and actions that are otherwise taken for granted as given, natural, or meaningless.
Self-Reflection - Reflecting on one's own beliefs and practices is the essential first step toward gaining the analytical distance that is required for critical thinking. I often tell my students that it's almost like an out-of-the-body experience: standing aside and watching what you do and think as though it was someone else.
Media Analysis - Today's college students seem quite media savvy. Whether the traditional popular media or social media, they are quick to recite critical perspectives on their negative social and personal impact. Yet, their understanding of media tends to stop there. So, this course incorporates exercises in which to practice concrete skills of symbolic analysis on visual media.
Online Learning and Communication - How to work productively in a technology-mediated environment, and how to communicate and collaborate effectively online? These are crucial skills for students who will be soon navigating the post-COVID job search and workplace. In addition to the course content, I incorporated skill-building as a required element of the course, including time management, teamwork, and online slide presentation.
Course Structure
The course is designed for a 15-week semester. Each "module" is structured around a process-oriented assignment (instead of an essay or exam at the end), which students work on step-by-step throughout the module.
Week 1-2: Introductory Module
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First class session focuses on the discussion of course requirements and verbal instruction on the modular learning process.
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Remainder of the module will model the modular learning process in a shortened format.
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Practice assignment is centered on the discussion of online learning and job/career-relevant skills that they can practice in this course. It requires students to incorporate three modes of learning: self-guided activities (readings, video recorded presentations, discussion prep), whole-class discussion and teamwork, to set their own goals for skill development.
Week 3-5: Module 1 Food and Self
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Primary goals: 1) introduce key theoretical concepts for critical study of food, 2) consider the concept of power through an ethnographic case study, and 3) reflect on the changes in our food habits during the COVID pandemic and consider the relationship between food and self.
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Process-oriented assignment helps students acquire the skills of applying critical theory to deconstruct symbolic relationships around food and demystify the relationship of power behind them.
Week 6-8: Module 2 Affluence
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Primary goals: 1) to consider the notion of "affluence" in relationship to food, 2) introduce inequity inherent in access to affluence, 3) consider media representation of food and its underlying assumptions about affluence
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Process-oriented assignment helps students practice critical analysis by applying conceptual tools learned in this course to popular cultural representation.
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Skill-building midterm progress check helps students to assess their progress and adjust their strategies for the remainder of the semester.
Week 9-11: Module 3 Mini-Conference
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Primary goals: 1) to demonstrate grasp of theoretical ideas presented in readings about the systems of food production and distribution and their consequences, 2) work independently in a small team to collect information and analyze the assigned topic related to food, 3) present their findings effectively online.
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Team presentation helps students to identify a topic of their interest, combine multiple articles/chapters from two textbooks and additional reliable source(s), and craft a thought-provoking presentation.
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Process-oriented assignment helps students develop their team presentation within the allocated time, and generate synthesis (as though they just attended a mini-conference on food studies).
Week 12-15: Final Module
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Primary goals: 1) to identify a significant food-related issue, 2) identify a "small change" that can lead to a major change in our food practices, if adopted collectively, and 3) put together a thoughtful proposal to convince a relevant decision-maker.
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Process-oriented assignment (in lieu of the final exam) helps students integrate all the materials from this course to craft a proposal for social change.
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Skill-building final reflection helps students to evaluate how much progress they made on self-identified goals.
Reflection
To be honest, I was a little nervous about the online team presentations. I've done it before in the in-person version of this course, but didn't know if students would be able to pull it off online. I'm excited to report that all five teams did a very good job of researching the topic and harnessing technology tools to prepare and present together online. They also found the "mini-conference" format a productive way to share and learn from each other's insights, observation largely supported by insightful synthesis essays.
It was also the first time I incorporated graded assignments on transferable skill-building, and that worked out very well, too. Students appreciated the acknowledgement that they were doing a lot to learn how to learn online. Self-defined process encourages them to choose what is relevant for themselves and take ownership of their own professional development.