Trying to finish a syllabus is nearly impossible. To put the pen down means to admit that your course can never be comprehensive – never conclusive. And when it comes to teaching the history of food (even in the U.S.), it feels impossible to press print. But here’s to beginning complex discussions about food somewhere!
Here is a syllabus for an undergraduate American Studies course exploring transnational American food studies I designed to teach as a distance learning option at Purdue University in the spring of 2017. Having taught a distance learning course and wrestled with how to make meaningful connections with students via the Internet, I’ve tried to use technology and interactive exercises to still make food a medium for engaging with American history and culture critically.
While the course is organized around weekly readings regarding 11 key ingredients, I’ve incorporated assignments that will enable students to complete independent projects using both digital technology and oral history tools. One additional extra credit option allows students to “choose their own adventure” by documenting and analyzing an independent field trip to a site of food production and consumption wherever they are located.
Weeks have been organized around 11 key ingredients, with the ultimate goal of showing how there is no one American diet. Food ingredients have been arranged in a way to capture key national discussions chronologically, from rice and sugar in connection with colonialism and enslavement to coffee and wheat in regards to modern processes of fast food production and globalization.
See the reading and assignments schedule here at my Academia.edu page, where you can find the complete PDF version of the syllabus.
It was a painstakingly difficult process to narrow this course to 11 ingredients. What ingredients would you include in your course on American food histories? Any must-have readings on food history that I should include for my next course? Share them with me!
Kera Lovell, Ph.D. 