Art and Science of Fermented Foods

The global demand for food and fiber will continue to increase well into the next century. How will this food and fiber be produced? Will production be at the cost of soil loss, water contamination, pesticide poisoning, and increasing rural poverty? In this course, we examine the fundamental principles and practices of conventional and sustainable agriculture with a primary focus on crops. By examining farm case studies and current research on conventional and alternative agriculture we develop a set of economic, social, and ecological criteria for a critique of current agricultural practices in the United States and that will serve as the foundation for the development and analysis of new farming systems. Evaluations are based on two exams, class presentations, participation in a conference on potato production, and a final paper.

Just three aquatic species account for most seafood consumed in the US: shrimp, tuna, and salmon. But worldwide consumption is more diverse, including an array of finfish, invertebrates, aquatic plants, algae, and other animals. These ‘blue foods’ are fished, collected, gathered, or grown in the sea or freshwater and play essential roles in supporting human health, nutrition, livelihoods, and culture. Recent studies have shown that the top 7 categories of nutrient-rich animal-source foods are all aquatic in origin. So why do food policy and science still heavily focus on terrestrially produced foods, overlooking blue foods? This course will unpack this conundrum and examine blue food systems from ‘bait to plate’ by analyzing food production, provisioning, and consumption as interlinked activities. Blue food production includes small-scale and industrial harvesting and wild capture and aquaculture systems. Provisioning activities link production and consumption: the offloading of catch, storage and transportation of highly perishable foods, transformations from raw fish to the final product, and the marketing and distribution affected to reach consumers. Finally, consumption includes how we acquire our food, cook and eat it, and dispose of waste, as well as our nutritional and health outcomes. While conventional food policy and science have focused on food production in isolation, a food systems framework sheds light on dynamics that impact the flows and distribution of foods with equity implications: which foods are made by whom, where does food go, and who benefits? This course will introduce students to key changes in the goals and means of food policy, focusing on how the emergent dialogue on food systems in fisheries is reframing how we know and govern aquatic resources. A significant portion of the course will be dedicated to examining blue food case studies, which may include: seaweed farming in Tanzania, fishing cooperatives in Mexico, tuna longliners in the Mid-Atlantic, and Lobster fishing in Maine. Students will work in teams to analyze one of these case studies in-depth, applying a food systems lens to examine each case’s sustainability and equity challenges. Students will be evaluated through their participation in class discussions and in-class activities, weekly writing reflections, and co-leading a class with your case study team. The final project will be a group policy proposal outlining how stakeholders could better govern from a ‘food systems’ perspective in your blue food case study.

Introductory chemistry and biology are explored in the context of food and drink: the biology of crops, culinary chemistry, and the biochemistry of brewing. Major chemistry topics include atomic structure, periodicity, bonding, acid base chemistry, kinetics, equilibrium, colloids, and solubility of gases in liquids. Major biology topics include photosynthesis, respiration, plant and yeast life histories, cellular reproduction, and metabolism. We will also explore agricultural chemistry from a systems perspective: examining strategies to for keeping pace with the demand for nitrogen and phosphorous in soils. This course is meant to offer important, fundamental chemistry and biology through the framework of food, a universal human experience. These fundamental topics in Chemistry and Biology will be explored from the ground up, so no prior experience is required. Meanwhile, the culinary and agricultural framework should offer enough new content for students with a background in natural sciences. Students will be evaluated based on participation in classroom and laboratory sessions, projects, and quizzes.

This course uses food as a lens to explore human origins, cultural diversity, social structure, and human/environment interactions. Through academic articles and films, the course exposes students to the different ways anthropologists think about food and the frameworks they use to answer questions concerning the human experience. The course also engages other disciplinary perspectives—including history, economics, and political ecology—to make larger connections between food and society.

Designed as a survey course, this course introduces students not only to writing as process—prewriting, writing, and rewriting—but also to the broad and dynamic subfield of food anthropology. The course is organized around four themes. The first—human origins, diets, and biocultural evolution—explores the uniqueness of cooking to the human species, and how the co-evolution of human diets and culture has shaped different groups' dietary needs, practices, and restrictions. The second—globalization and international trade—looks at the flow of foods and food practices around the world, from sugar to sushi. The third—hegemony and difference—considers how race, gender, and class are constructed and expressed through food. The final theme—consumption and embodiment—considers the relationship between eating and the body; readings in this section focus on body image, eating practices, and critical studies of the rhetoric around hunger and obesity. Students are evaluated based on class participation, a series of reflection papers, a dietary analysis, and a recipe project involving a prepared meal, an audio-visual presentation, and a critical analysis paper. This course meets the first-year writing requirement.

This course explores the rich history of capitalism through the lens of two of the most ubiquitous and valuable crops in the world: corn and coffee. The crops provide insight into the global and local dimensions of both historical and contemporary reality in the countries where they are grown with a focus on Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. Corn and coffee provide a convenient vantage point from which to examine the social, economic, and cultural dynamics of community-based production of both crops on the one hand and their globally-connected production as commodities. The course moves from a broad macro perspective on each crop to an intensive exploration of how both are produced in Guatemala. In this way, class participants will be able to look at how global historical trends in consumption have played themselves out in local communities. The class will simultaneously be able to look at the processes at work in pueblos throughout Guatemala that root the corn economy into rich cultural and social dynamics that are at the core of communal life. Using these two crops as a starting point, the class will allow students to develop a holistic and synthetic understanding of how global food systems land in places. The course emphasizes attention to the broad global dimensions of corn and coffee's production as well as the fine-grained study of Guatemala's socio-cultural life in historical and anthropological perspective. Through discussions of the books, this seminar-style course seeks to provide students with deep insights into the history of a specific place while maintaining a sense of the global and regional context. Intensive readings will provide students with a snapshot of trends in both history and ethnography while broader synthetic analyses of both corn and coffee will embody more popular approaches to the topic. Students will lead discussions of the readings, write short synthetic essays, and undertake a research project for the class. Evaluation will be based on short writing, course participation and the final project.

Environmental harms and benefits fall in predictable patterns across our bodies and landscapes, tracing lines of inequality that are embedded deep within our colonial history and modern societal structures. Environmental justice as a field of study represents an attempt to uncover and understand those patterns by drawing connections between harm and broader practices, laws, and procedures by state and private actors. It is also a study of resistance to harm, often led by those in marginalized communities, but increasingly led by more reluctant activists who find themselves on the losing side of capitalism’s growing list of externalities, from pollution, pipelines, and extraction to land degradation and climate collapse.

In this foundational course, we will navigate frustration and accomplishment, despair and hope, and the boundaries around what’s broken, and what may still be fixed, in our movement toward a more desirable future for life on earth. The course will draw on philosophy (e.g., John Rawl’s Theory of Justice), history and contemporary politics (e.g., Nina Lakahni’s Who Killed Berta Cáceres), and sociological theory (e.g., Naomi Klien’s Shock Doctrine) to ground specific case studies and bring context to their development so that students may begin to see what drives environmental injustice and response.

This course will be of value to students at all levels interested in bridging social theory with contemporary problems so that they may develop deeper analysis of and more sustainable solutions to ongoing environmental and social problems. Over the course of the term, we will pair readings and in-class discussion with the development of a “braided narrative” that brings together lived experiences and deep research. Students will be evaluated through a combination of self-assessment, written assignments, and in-person engagement.