Tuesday/Friday, 11:00-12:30
Fall 2020
Molly Farneth
Gest 205
mfarneth@haverford.edu
610-896-1027 (office)
Office hours: by appointment
Ken Koltun-Fromm
Gest 201
kkoltunf@haverford.edu
610-896-1026 (office)
Office hours: by appointment
Molly Hawkins
Teaching Assistant
mmhawkins@haverford.edu
Office hours: Tuesday 1:30-3
Course Description:
Decisions about how to cook and what to eat are not only about the nutritional demands of our physical bodies. They are also guided by who we take ourselves to be: our beliefs and habits, our individual and collective identities, and the people, places, and histories we seek to connect with. These are also central concerns of religious traditions, where food practices embody ethical, legal, theological, gender, racial, and normative claims about community, self, and right conduct.
This course explores the role of food and eating in religion, with a particular focus on American religions. We will consider how religious food practices—including dietary laws, feast days, fasts, and other rituals and foodways—construct religious identities, social bodies, gendered selves, racial communities, and ethical ideals.
Books to Purchase or Online:
Elizabeth Pérez, Religion in the Kitchen (see here)
Michael Twitty, The Cooking Gene
Course Format and Assignments:
This is an online class which includes synchronous and asynchronous meetings and activities.
We will divide the Tuesday class into two sections: the first section from 11:10-11:30 is time for us to explain that day’s activity and assignment, as well as to describe the work you must do for Friday. The second section between 11:30-12:30 is group activity time. We will divide the class into four groups, and you will meet with your group in Zoom Breakout Rooms to do that day’s class assignment. All work for this day will be completed on a Google document to be shared with Molly and Ken at the end of class.
For our Friday meeting, you will be assigned to one of four groups (A, B, C, D) and you will meet with your assigned group either between 11:10-11:50 or 11:50-12:30. We will discuss the week’s reading during this Friday class, and you will have a written assignment due every Friday before class. Required class time, therefore, is one hour and 20 minutes on Tuesday and 40 minutes on Friday.
Students are expected to complete all assigned readings and to have watched all prerecorded videos uploaded to Moodle by the beginning of the Tuesday class. In addition, students are expected to participate in the Zoom class discussions and activities for both Tuesday and Friday classes, and to turn in their Friday assignments by the beginning of class on Friday. Coursework includes 1) participation in group activity on Tuesday and collectively handing in that day’s activity assignment by sharing the Google document with Molly and Ken; 2) uploading to the class Moodle page the Friday assignment; and 3) the final project due at the end of finals period.
Each Friday assignment will receive a Credit/No Credit Grade (either 100 or 0). If you fulfill the assignment in a satisfactory manner, which means completing all tasks in a thoughtful and engaged way, with care and attention, then you will receive full credit. You may do over an assignment in which you received No Credit in order to achieve Credit, but you may not redo work that was not turned in on time (in other words, you cannot backfill assignments to receive Credit). Your collective group work for Tuesday classes will be recognized as part of your class participation grade. You will receive a letter grade for your final project.
In sum, there are three areas of grades: 1) Credit/No Credit grades for your Friday assignments; 2) Class participation grade (including work on Tuesdays); and 3) Your final project. We will examine all of your work as a piece, and provide a grade that fairly expresses the work and attention rendered to the class assignments participation.
We recognize the many challenges, caused by and exacerbated by the pandemic, that may impact your ability to engage in the course at different points in the semester. In light of these circumstances, we will accept late assignments, although a pattern of late or missing assignments may affect your final grade. If you are having trouble keeping up with assignments or find yourself unable to meet a deadline, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can come up with a plan for you to engage and succeed in the course. Requests for extensions on the final paper must be vetted first by your academic dean. If your academic dean believes your request is reasonable, the dean will pass that request on to us for consideration.
Haverford College is committed to providing equal access to students with a disability. If you have (or think you have) a learning difference or disability – including mental health, medical, or physical impairment – please contact the Office of Access and Disability Services (ADS) at hc-ads@haverford.edu. The Director will confidentially discuss the process to establish reasonable accommodations.
Students who have already been approved to receive academic accommodations and want to use their accommodations in this course should share their verification letter with us and also make arrangements to meet with us as soon as possible to discuss their specific accommodations. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive and require advance notice to implement.
It is a state law in Pennsylvania that individuals must be given advance notice if they are to be recorded. Therefore, any student who has a disability-related need to audio record this class must first be approved for this accommodation from the Director of Access and Disability Services and then must speak with us. Other class members will need to be aware that this class may be recorded.
We are committed to the standards regarding academic integrity contained in the Haverford College honor code. If you have any questions about how the honor code applies to your work in this course, contact Molly or Ken to discuss them as soon as possible. Most academic integrity violations come from being overwhelmed or unsure of how to pursue a project in accordance with standards and policies. If you are feeling overwhelmed or uncertain, please ask for accommodations or advice!
Course Schedule:
Introduction (September 6-12)
Jonathan Foer, Eating Animals, 3-17
Sacred and Profane (September 13-19)
Émile Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 25-46
Leela Prasad, Poetics of Conduct, 4-7
Food Rules and Taboos (September 20-26)
Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal” 61-81
Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Near a Thousand Tables, 21-54
Social Roles/Social Structure (September 27-October 3)
Elizabeth Pérez, Religion in the Kitchen, Introduction, Chapter 1 (skim), and either Chapter 2 or Chapter 3
Bodies and Diets (October 4-10)
Marie Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 1-21, 206-238
Gwen Shamblin, The Weigh Down Diet, 1-11, 109-111, 115-121, 127-131
Gastronomy, Religion, and Black Power (October 11-17)
Elijah Muhammad, How to Eat to Live, 1-21
Leonard Primiano, “And as we Dine, We Sing and Praise God,” 42-67
Marie Griffith, Born Again Bodies, 140-159
Cookbooks (October 18-24)
Video: On Cookbooks
Cookbooks (October 25-31)
History, Memory, and Race (November 1-7)
History, Memory, and Race (November 8-14)
Michael Twitty, The Cooking Gene, 1-80, 365-380 (chapters 1-4, and 19)
Cookbook presentations (Friday)
Step 1 for Final Project (Friday)
Land, Non-Human Animals, Humans, and Food Ethics (November 15-21)
Jonathan Foer, Eating Animals, 151-199
Wendell Berry, “The Pleasures of Eating”
Steps 2 and 3 for Final Project
Meals and Finals (November 29-December 5)
The Thanksgiving Meal (Tuesday)
Discussion of Final Projects (Friday)
Step 4 for Final Project
Movies and Course Review (December 6-12)
Discussion on Babette’s Feast (Tuesday)
Review of “Food and Religion” (Friday)
———–
Final Project Assignment
For the final project, you will choose a food, meal, or food practice that is important to you in the context of your family or a community of which you are a part. Over the final 1/3 of the course, you will write a series of short papers in which you will analyze this food or meal. Then, at the end of the semester, you will choose between two options to either cook, document, and analyze your food or meal, or to write a paper that interrogates what is significant about your food or meal and how that importance can be preserved as you reimagine it under conditions of social distancing.
Step 1 (November 8-14):
Decide on the food or meal that you would like to focus on for your final project. Write a short description of the food/meal that you have chosen, and reflect briefly on its importance to you.
Step 2 (November 15-21): Analyzing the movement of goods
Describe and analyze the movement of one or more of the goods and resources involved in the preparation, presentation, and consumption of your food/meal. These may be material, immaterial, or spiritual goods and resources (e.g. ingredients, money, know-how, authority).
Step 3 (November 15-21): Social/structural analysis
Analyze the social roles and norms at play in the preparation and/or consumption of your food/meal. Who cooks it? Who eats it? When? How? Who is included and excluded in the preparation and/or eating? Are there gender norms involved? Does age matter? Do some people have more authority than others in the preparation or presentation? Are there rules, taboos, prohibitions about how it can or can’t be prepared or eaten?
Step 4 (November 29-December 5): Oral Histories
Contact someone in your family or community who has a special connection to your chosen food/meal. Perhaps this person typically cooks this food; perhaps they typically host the meal; perhaps the recipe comes from them or from their branch of the family. Conduct an oral history, asking them about their memories and experiences of cooking and eating this food/meal. If it is a particular food, you might ask them to describe how they make it.
Step 5 (December 18 by 12 pm): Final Project
You may choose between two options for the final project:
(1) Option 1: Cook, document, and analyze
If you have access to a kitchen, you may choose to prepare and serve your food/meal. You should document the cooking and eating (using sound files, photos, video, etc.). This documentation will become part of the portfolio that you will turn in. Then, using one of the tools or approaches encountered in the course (thick description and close textual analysis, social/structural analysis, mapping the movement of goods, etc.), analyze the food or food practice as material object or social practice (5-6 pages).
(2) Option 2: Analyze and adapt for Covid-19
Write a paper in which you describe how you would prepare and serve your food/meal during Covid-19 in a way that preserves what you take to be important about it under conditions of social distancing. Perhaps you don’t have easy access to groceries (or to certain ingredients), or perhaps the people who typically gather aren’t able to do so. How would you propose cooking and eating your food/meal during Covid-19? Your paper should describe your food/meal, identify what is important about it (and make a case for why that is important), utilize a text read in class to explore distinctions within or importance of your food practice, and then describe your proposal for adapting it to Covid-19 (7-10 pages).
