Fred Gibbs (fwgibbs@unm.edu)
Mesa Vista Hall, 1077
Office Hours: M 10-11; W 11-1; almost anytime by appointment
What constitutes healthy food? A healthy diet? A healthy body? Needless to say, dietary regimens to restore or maintain health—as well as what it means to be healthy—have remained preeminent questions throughout Western medical history. Yet even today, medical understandings of diet and official dietary advice seems to change almost daily. This course explores how various cultural, scientific, and medical values have continually shaped our relationship to food, health, and diet from the “discovery” of America to the present.
Some guiding questions: How and why have the perceived medical virtues of various foods changed over time? Why have fad diets come in and gone out of fashion? How has modern medicine continually redefined what it means to be healthy and to eat a healthy diet? How have national recommendations for healthy foods been used as social controls? How have changing attitudes about the body, health, and technology shaped our preferences for what should be considered healthy food?
The course will be taught in the shiny new Teaching and Learning building in “learning studios” that look like this. Discussions will be more like labs, in which everyone will be working in small groups to research and discuss and present on relevant topics and research exercises. One of these topics will be the nature and history of local food, in parallel with October as “Local Food Month” in ABQ.
Understand the changing notion of diet and the constantly shifting relationship between diet and health in Western medicine.
Appreciate how attitudes about diet are not based on “objective” medical knowledge, but grow out of complex constellation of social, political, and cultural values.
Develop sensitivity to how different social and cultural populations approach food and health in vastly different terms, and how this might inform food, diet, and health policy decisions.
Sharpen critical thinking skills by evaluating online dietary advice while exposing its assumptions and putting it in historical perspective.
The class will meet in the shiny new Teaching and Learning building in “learning studios.” Discussions will be more like labs where everyone will be working in groups to research the weekly topic and making extensive use of the video projector and whiteboards to share and communicate. Part of most class meetings will be dedicated to group project work; every Friday we will have group presentations that will summarize and bring together the readings for the week in a visual way.
Simply showing up to class counts for very little; I expect that you’ll attend most classes and actively participate in all activities. This work counts for 50% of your grade. If you want a course where you can passively attend lectures and occasionally regurgitate information, this course isn’t for you.
You will produce 3 1-page executive summaries and critiques of some “publication” pertaining to food, health, and diet. These can be articles from a newspaper or magazine, a movie, science research article, historical scholarship, or whatever you like. They should be easily accessible through Google (this is not a scholarly or library research assignment, though you can go that route if you want). These assignments will show that you’re able to apply the course discussion and activities in productive ways. If you are not pleased with your grade, you can revise and resubmit them after talking with me first. (30% total; 10% each)
Your final “exam” will consist of contributing to a group project that examines some facet of the relationship between food, health and diet. All groups will present their research during the last week of class. You will compose (and be individually graded on) a 750-word essay that explains a) your contribution to the group project; b) an assessment of others’ contributions; c) a summary of what you learned in the course and how you applied that to the project. (20%)
Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at the Table (ISBN: 978-0520234390).
Marion Nestle, Food Politics (ISBN: 978-0520275966).
Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food (ISBN: 978-0143114963).
You will also need to subscribe to the course Zotero library to access assigned articles not contained in the edited volumes. This will be discussed on the first day of class. For reference, please see the instructions for doing this at fredgibbs.net/courses/etc/zotero.html.
View the Schedule of Readings