AMS 302—Politics of Everyday Life: Food and Eating

This course explores the politics of everyday life in the Americas, with a special focus on the history of food and eating in the Americas. It takes food as a lens through which to understand the history of nation building and immigration in the Americas, with a special focus on race, class, gender and identity. This course will help student hone their critical eye by analyzing a wide range of food related texts, images, and other media from the 19th century into the present, including cookbooks, literature, blogs, TV and films. Students will also study the food they make, cook, eat and discard as the product of history and also the means by which social, political and national identity are made and unmade.