Week 1 Thursday September 3: Introduction to the scope and methods of the course.
Week 2 Sept. 8 & 10 Food in Prehistory, some general considerations: Thursday discuss Food and Culture the essay by Barthes pages 20-27, and the remarkable debate over the pig 28-79 in Food and Culture.
Week 3 Sept. 15 & 17 Beginning to clean up our act All Manners of Food 1-39 Medieval matters, The Rituals of Dinner "Learning to Behave," 39-78 "Japanese Mothers and Obentos" Food and Culture, 296-314
Week 4 Sept. 22 & 24 Medieval times and Discovery All Manners of Food 40-61 "Spices, or the Dawn of the Modern Age" Tastes of Paradise 3-14 , Fast, Feast and Flash Caroline Walker Bynum Food and Culture 138-158.
Week 5 Sept. 29 & Oct. 1 The Transformation of the World, the test case of Sugar, but also Potatoes and Corn. Sidney W. Mintz "Time, Sugar and Sweetness" Food and Culture 357-369, "Corn our Mother, our Life" By Visser, Xerox.
Week 6 Oct. 6 & 8 From Renaissance to Revolution chapters 4 and 5 All Manners of Food 62-133
Week 7 Oct. 13 & 15 Student Group Presentations on a food.
Week 8 Oct. 20 & 22 The Drink of Capitalism "Coffee and Chocolate" Tastes of Paradise 15-95
Week 9 Oct. 27 & 29 Cleaning up our Act II, Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner 137-296,
Week 10 Nov. 3 & 5 Food, Body, and Culture. Pleasantly Plump or What's new about Eating Disorders. Food and Culture 211-269
Week 11 Nov. 10 & 12 The Rise of Domesticity and other Victorian Tendencies "The Appetite as Voice" Joan Brumberg Food and Culture 157-179 Selection from Laura Shapiro's Perfection Salad "Domestic Cookery in the Bourgeois Age" All Manners of Food 200-229
Week 12 Nov. 17 & 19 Industrial food "The Industrial Revolution, Beer, and Liquor" Tastes of Paradise 147-166. Jack Goody "Industrial Food: Towards the Development of a World Cuisine." Food and Culture 338-356.. Harvey Levenstein "The American Response to Italian Food, 1880-1930, Food and Foodways 1:1-24 Xerox,
Week 13 Nov. 24 & 26 Thanksgiving Holiday... 24th Midterm/Final
Week 14 Dec. 1 & 3 Contemporary Developments: Martha Stewart, celebrity chefs, fusion cooking. Readings to be assigned on the basis of declared student enthusiasms
Week 15 Dec. 8 & 10 Student presentations continued if necessary into following week
Week 16 Dec. 15 & 17 Finals Week