HIST 3400 Intro to Global Food Studies

Introduction to Global Food Studies is a course that provides students with the knowledge and skill to examine the role, and importance, of food in historical and contemporary settings. Using a global perspective, this class examines the complex ways food has influenced human history. The class focuses on both the large-scale patterns as well as the more intimate ways that we experience food in our daily lives. Some of the major questions posed in this class are: How has food, or the lack of it, influenced human history; How is it produced and distributed?; Who produces the food and who controls it?; How can you use food to understand the changes in a society over time?; How does food create meaning and identity?; what is the impact of environment and weather on what we eat; and how is culture influence or represented by foodways.