ANTH 3350 Food and Culture Spring 2015 Lecture: Wed 1:30

ANTH 3350 Food and Culture Lecture: Wed 1:30 ‐ 3:15pm NAH 12 Tutorial: Thur 4:30 ‐ 5:15pm NAH401, and TBA Lecturer: Prof. Maria Tam (NAH 303, siumitam@cuhk.edu.hk) TA: Ms. Luo Jingjing (NAH406, kate992342761@126.com) Spring 2015 Course description We eat every day, and consider the behavior just “natural”. But what, how, where and when, and with whom we eat, all convey cultural meanings and are relevant to social identifications. Food is also very much associated with health and illness, and concepts of fitness and beauty. This course focuses on the social implications and cultural meanings of food. We will study how food and foodways manifest in our thoughts, behavior, and social relations. We will examine the continuity and discontinuity of traditions, and intervening factors such as globalization, colonization, religion, class, and issues of identity in the culture and politics of food. Course objectives Students having finished the course will: a) have greater insight into the sources and diffusion of food; b) obtain a fuller understanding of the relationship between food and many aspects of social life; c) be able to think analytically about the politics of food; d) better understand the nature of their own food culture and choices of food. Course requirements Participation: 20% (10 tutorials @ 2 marks) Response papers: 40% (2 papers @ 20 marks) Final paper: 40% 1. Participation: Attendance is mandatory. Students are responsible for doing the assigned readings and for taking an active part in class. Marking is based on how well you prepare and how much you contribute to the discussion. Attendance alone does not carry points. Discussion leaders receive bonus points. 2. Response papers: Submit two 3‐4 page papers: one on a cookbook of your choice (due Feb 25), and one on the field trip (due March 25). Response papers are meant to be short, critical examinations of the assigned readings interwoven with your thoughts on the recipe book/field trip. You should raise questions and points of discussion, instead of summarizing readings/field trip. Please submit soft copies to both VeriGuide and to the course website. Hard copies are not required for response papers. You are encouraged to write more than two response papers. In that case, we will count the best two marks. 3. Final Paper: Write a 10 page paper that draws on careful reading of and conversation with class themes and texts. Talk to the teacher/TA by week 8 regarding topics and approaches. The paper is due on 29 April, 2015. Please submit a soft copy to VeriGuide, and a hard copy with the signed VeriGuide receipt to the Anthropology Department office (NAH 407). It should be double‐spaced and in 12‐point font. Include a list of references cited. Late submissions will attract a penalty of one point per day. No submissions will be accepted after May 6. For all written assignments, note that the University adopts a policy of zero tolerance on plagiarism. Using someone else’s ideas or words without citing the source is plagiarism. (This includes material from the Internet without citing the website). It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with the CUHK academic honesty policy at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/. 1
Course schedule Please note that tutorials take place after the weekly lecture. (*=required reading) Week 1 January 7 Introduction: Studying foodways (No tutorial) *1) Mintz, Sidney, and Christine du Bois. 2002. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating”. Annual Review of Anthropology 31:99‐119. 2) Mead, Margaret. 2008. “The Problem of changing food habits”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (2e), pp. 17‐27. New York: Routledge. 3) Harper, Charles, and Bryan Le Beau. 2003. Ch.1 “The Biological Base”, and Ch.2 “Food and History”. In Food, Society and Environment. Pearson. 4) Mintz, Sidney. 1996. “Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom”. In Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into eating, culture and the past. Boston: Beacon Press. Week 2 January 14 Glocalization of foodways *1) Bestor, Theodore. 2005. “How Sushi Went Global”. In James Watson and Melissa Caldwell, eds, The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A reader, pp.13‐20. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. *2) Wilk, Richard. 2013. “ ‘Real Belizean food’: Building local identity in the transnational Carribean”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp.376‐393. New York: Routledge. 3) Kelly, Traci Marie. 2001. “Honoring Helga, ‘The Little Lefse Maker’: The regional food as social marker, tradition and art. In In Sherrie Inness, ed, Cooking Lessons: The politics of gender and food. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. 4) Van Otterloo, Anneke. 2002. “Chinese and Indonesian Restaurants and the Taste for Exotic Food in the Netherlands: A Global‐local trend”. In Katarzyna Cwiertka and Boudewijn, eds, Asian Food: The global and the local, pp.153‐166. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. 5) Watson, James. 1997. “Introduction: Transnationalism, Localization and Fast Foods in East Asia”. In James Watson , ed, Golden Arches East. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Week 3 January 21 Food and Chineseness *1) Chang, K.C. ed. 1977. Ch.1 “Ancient China”, Ch.7 “Modern China North”, Ch.8 “Modern China South”. In Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press. *2) Cooper, Eugene. 1986. “Chinese Table Manners: You are how you eat”. Human Organization 45(2):179‐184. 3) Anderson, E.N. 1997. “Traditional Medical Values of Food”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader. New York: Routledge. 4) Cheng, Sealing. 1997. “Back to the Future: Herbal Tea Shops in Hong Kong”. In Grant Evans and Maria Tam, eds. Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis. Surrey: Curzon Press. 5) Wu, David. 2002. “Improvising Chinese Cuisine Overseas”. In David Wu and Sidney Cheung, eds, The Globalization of Chinese Food. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. Week 4 January 28 Film screening and discussion (No tutorial) Week 5 February 4 Food and the construction of health *1) Bordo, Susan. 2008. “Anorexia Nervosa: Psychopathology as the crystallization of culture”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (2e), pp.162‐186. New York: Routledge. *2) Powdermaker, Hortense. 1997. “An Anthropological Approach to the Problem of Obesity”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A Reader. New York: Routledge. 3) Mennell, Stephen. 1997. “On the Civilizing of Appetite”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader. New York: Routledge. 4) Counihan, Carole. 1999. “What Does It Mean to be Fat, Thin, and Female?” In The Anthropology of Food and Body, pp. 76‐92. New York: Routledge. 5) Sobo, Elisa. 1997. “The Sweetness of Fat: Health, procreation and sociability in rural Jamaica”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader. New York: Routledge. Week 6 February 11 Cookbooks, memories, and cultural production *1) Black, Sarah. 2007. “Community cookbooks, women, and the building of the ‘civil society’ in Australia, 2
1900‐38”. In Diane Kirkby ad Tanja Luchins, eds, Dining on Turtles: Food feasts and drinking in history, pp. 154‐170.New York: Palgrave. *2) Appadurai, Arjun. 1988. “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in contemporary India”. Comparative Studies in Society and History 30: 3‐24. 3) Neuhaus, Jessamyn. 2001. “Is Meatloaf for Men? Gender and meatloaf recipes 1920‐1960”. In Sherrie Inness, ed, Cooking Lessons: The politics of gender and food. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. 4) Heldke, Lisa. 2013. “Let’s Cook Thai: Recipes for colonialism”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (2e), pp.394‐408. New York: Routledge. 5) Lucas, Kristen, and Patrice Buzzanell. 2011. “It’s the Cheese: Collective memory of hard times during deindustrialization”. In Janet Cramer, Carlnita Greene, and Lynn Walters, eds, Food and Communication, Communication as Food, pp.95‐114. New York: Peter Lang. Week 7 February 18 No class/tutorial due to Lunar New Year holiday Week 8 February 25 Engendering food * 1) Allison, Anne. 2013. “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The lunch box as ideological state apparatus”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A Reader (3e), pp.154‐172. New York: Routledge. *2) Parasecoli, Fabio. 2013. “Feeding Hard Bodies: Food and masculinities in men's fitness magazines”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp.284‐298. New York: Routledge. 3) Counihan, Carole. 1998. “Introduction: food and gender‐‐identity and power”. In Carole Counihan and Steven Kaplan, eds, Food and Gender: identity and power. Amsterdam: Harwood. 4) Jenkins, Virginia. 2001. “Bananas: Women’s food”. In Sherrie Inness, ed, Cooking Lessons: The politics of gender and food, pp.111‐128. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefields. 5) Carrington, Christopher. 2013. “Feeding Lesbigay Families”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp.287‐210. New York: Routledge. Week 9 March 4 Food in the family * 1) Tam, Siumi Maria. 2007. “Convenient‐involvement foods and production of the family meal in South China”. In Sidney Cheung and Tan Chee Beng, eds, Food and Foodways in Asia. *2) Watson, James. 1987. “From the Common Pot: Feasting with equals in Chinese society”. Anthropos 82:389‐401. 3) Bentley, Amy. 2002. “Inventing Baby Food: Gerber and the discourse of infancy in the United States”. In Warren Belasco and Philip Scranton, eds, Food Nations: selling taste in consumer societies. New York: Routledge. 4) Watson, James. 1997. “McDonald’s in Hong Kong: Consumerism, dietary change, and the rise of a children’s culture”. In James Watson, ed, Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 5) Salazar, Melissa, Gail Feenstra, and Jeri Ohmart. 2008. “Salad Days: A Visual Study of Children's Food Culture”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader, pp. 423‐440. New York: Routledge. Week 10 March 11 Lecture replaced by field trip on March 14 (No tutorial) Week 11 March 18 Food and politics *1) Fitchen, Janet. 1997. “Hunger, Malnutrition, and Poverty in the Contemporary United States: Some observations on their social and cultural context”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader. New York: Routledge. *2) Nestle, Marion. 2007. “Afterword: Food Politics: Five years and beyond”. In Food Politics: How the food industry influences nutrition and health. Berkeley: University of California Press. 3) Borrero, Mauricio. 2002. “Food and the Politics of Scarcity in Urban Soviet Russia, 1917‐1941”. In Food Nations: Selling taste in consumer societies. New York: Routledge. 4) Clapp, Jennifer. 2013. “The Political Economy of Food Aid in an Era of Agricultural Biotechnology”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp.531‐545. New York: Routledge. 3
5) Esterik, Penny. 2013. “The Politics of Breastfeeding: An advocacy update.” In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp. 510‐530. New York: Routledge. Week 12 March 25 Milk and Food security *1) Anderson, E. N. 2005. Ch. 13 “Feeding the World”. In Everyone Eats: Understanding Food and Culture, pp.207‐233. New York: New York University Press. *2) Mintz, Sidney, Tan Chee‐Beng and Christine M. Du Bois. 2008. “Introduction: the Significance of Soy”. In The World of Soy. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 3) Pottier, Johan. 1999. “State of Play: Anthropology, Food Security and New Directions in Research.” In Anthropology of Food: The Social Dynamics of Food Security”, pp. 188‐197. Cambridge: Polity Press. 4) Poppendieck, Janet. 2013. “Want Amid Plenty: From Hunger to Inequality”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp. 563‐571. New York: Routledge. Week 13 April 1 Food as social identity *1)Mankekar, Purnima. 2005. “India shopping: Indian grocery stores and transnational configurations of belonging”. In James Watson and Melissa Caldwell, eds, The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A reader, Pp.197‐214. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. *2) Tan Chee Beng. 2001. “Food and Ethnicity with Reference to the Chinese in Malaysia”. In David Wu and Tan Chee Beng, eds, Changing Chinese Foodways in Asia, pp.125‐160. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 3) Clark, Dylan. 2008. “The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader, pp.411‐422. New York: Routledge. 4) Cheng, Sea‐ling. 2002. “Eating Hong Kong’s Way Out”. In Katarzyna Cwiertka and Boudewijn Walraven, eds, Asian Food: The global and the local, pp.16‐33. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. 5) Jansen, Willy. 2001. “French Bread and Algerian Wine: Conflicting identities in French Algeria”. In Peter Scholliers, ed, Food, Drink and Identity: Cooking, eating and drinking in Europe since the middle ages. New York: Berg. Week 14 April 8 Food and religion *1) Gillette, Maris. 2000. Chapter 5 “Factory Food, Modernization, and Race”. In Between Mecca and Beijing: Modernization and Consumption among Urban Chinese Muslims, pp.145‐166. Stanford: Stanford University Press. *2) Bynum, Caroline. 2013. “Fast, Feast, and Flesh: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women”. In Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds, Food and Culture: A reader (3e), pp.245‐264. New York: Routledge. 3) Dubisch, Jill. 2000. Ch.26 “You are What You Eat: Religious aspects of the health food movement”. In Goodma, Duforu, and Pelto, eds. Nutritional Anthropology: Biocultural perspectives on food and nutrition. 4) Wirzba, Norman. 2011. “The ‘Roots’ of Eating.” In Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating, pp.35‐70. New York: Cambridge University Press. 5) Van Esterik, Penny. 1998. “Feeding Their Faith: Recipe knowledge among Thai Buddhist women”. In Carole Counihan and Steven Kaplan, eds, Food and Gender: identity and power. Amsterdam: Harwood. Week 15 April 15 Conclusion: What to eat? (No tutorial) * 1) Mintz, Sidney. 2002. “Food and Eating: Some persisting questions”. In Food Nations: Selling taste in consumer societies. New York: Routledge. * 2) Nestle, Marion. 2006. “Conclusion: Taking action”. In What to Eat? New York: North Point Press. 3) Ritvo, Harriet. 2005. “Mad Cow Mysteries”. In James Watson and Melissa Caldwell, eds, The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: A reader, pp.299‐306.Malden: Blackwell Publishing. 4) Sapontzis, Steve, ed. 2004. Food for Thought: The debates over eating meat. Amherst: Prometheus Books. 5) Young, Sera. 2007. “Evidence for the Consumption of the Inedible: Who, What, When, Where and Why?”. In J. MacClancy, J. Henry, and H. Macbeth, eds, Consuming the Inedible: neglected dimensions of food choice, pp.17‐30. Oxford: Berghahn. 4