ENVA 390:
Food/Culture/Storytelling
MW,
4:45–6:25 pm, Lone Mountain 350
Professor
David Silver (dmsilver [ at ] usfca [ dot ] edu)
Office /
hours: Kalmanovitz 141, MW, 1–2 pm & by appointment
This
course examines the many overlaps between food and culture from an interdisciplinary
and intersectional perspective. We begin with the personal, and trace our own
food patterns, consumptions, and heritages. Next, we get political and, with the
SF/Bay Area as our landscape and laboratory, explore local actions, apps, and
organizations devoted to food activism and food justice. In place of papers and
midterms, students will create and share stories – spoken, written,
photographic, multimedia, and social – within the classroom and into the
community.
Learning
Outcomes
By the conclusion of the semester, students will be
able to:
- Demonstrate an interdisciplinary understanding of key issues surrounding food and culture with a particular focus on cultural difference and culinary heritage;
- Engage in intellectually valuable readings, viewings, and discussions about food activism and food justice;
- Create original multimodal work that explores local actions, apps, and organizations devoted to food activism and food justice;
- Collaborate with peers and professor to share classroom stories with the broader campus community; and
- Reflect upon one’s role and contributions to industrial and alternative food systems.
Calendar
Wednesday,
January 23: Introductions and Expectations
Monday, January 28: Before class,
please read: Jenny Linford, “Honey,” in The Seven Culinary Wonders of the
World: A History of Honey, Salt, Chile, Pork, Rice, Cacao, and Tomato
(2018): pp. 43-73; and watch Stephen Satterfield, “Wild Grapes” (16 minutes), https://www.whetstonemedia.co/presents
Wednesday, January 30: Demo Day
1: Everything I ate and drank yesterday project
Monday, February 4: Read Ruben
Canedo, “Beyond the Campus Food Pantry”; Estella Cisneros, “Protecting
Farmworkers’ Rights”; Adrionna Fike, “A Community Grocery Store Feeds Its
People”; Sammy Gensaw III, “Fighting to Save the Salmon”; Breanna Hawkins, “Digesting
Data, Transforming Lives”; Kristyn Leach, “Farming Honors the Past and
Considers the Future”; Anthony Reyes, “Farming for a Stable Future”; and Rachel
Sumekh, “On a Mission to Swipe Out Student Hunger,” from Berkeley Food
Institute, Hungry for Change: California’s Emerging Food Systems Leaders,
https://bit.ly/2R3pf37
Wednesday, February 6: Read
Kathleen Collins, “Julia Child and Revolution in the Kitchen,” from Watching
What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows (Continuum, 2009):
71-100. In class reading: Michael Pollan, “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch,”
New York Times Magazine (August 2, 2009). At 6 pm, we will walk to Fromm
Hall to attend Cheryl Haines’ talk “Out of Place: The Power of Art in
Unexpected Spaces.” (This event runs until 7:30 pm, past our classtime. Please
plan accordingly. Also, there is a reception – free food! – following the talk in
Thacher Gallery in Gleeson.)
Monday, February 11: Watch
multiple segments of Samin Nosrat, Salt Fat Acid Heat (Netflix); and read
Therese Nelson, “Cookbooks, Not Restaurants, Are Giving Black Foodways an
Identity,” Taste (September 18, 2018). Also, as a class, we will attend
the community dinner at St Cyprian’s Church (Turk & Lyon) from 6-7:30 pm.
(This event runs past our classtime; please plan accordingly.)
Wednesday, February 13: Demo
Day 2: Food celebrity/food media project
Monday, February 18: No School:
Presidents Day
Wednesday, February 20: Read Taiyo
Scanlon-Kimura, “‘Bon Appétit!’: The Value of Fellowship at the Table,” “Meet
Northern California’s Suppliers of Local Fish, Cage-Free Eggs, and Fair-Trade Produce,”
and “SoCal Teams Visit Local Cheese Maker and an Organic Farm,” all online
here: http://www.bamco.com/author/taiyo-scanlon-kimura/ Guest Lecture: Taiyo
Scanlon-Kimura, Bon Appétit Fellow. Field trip to USF’s Caf for a kitchen and
dining room tour.
Monday, February 25: Read Jonathan
Kauffman, “Brown Bread and the Pursuit of Wholesomeness,” in Hippie Food:
How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat
(2018): 97-130. In class reading: Edward Espe Brown, “Detailed Instructions for
Making Tassajara Yeasted Bread,” in The Tassajara Bread Book (1970): 13-29.
Wednesday, February 27: Bread
Workshop at St Cyprian’s Church.
Monday, March 4: Read Shanta
Nimbark Sacharoff, “Rainbow Grocery Collective” and “Other Avenues Food Store
Cooperative,” in Other Avenues Are Possible: Legacy of the People’s Food
System of the San Francisco Bay Area (2016): 71-100. In class viewing: Lisa
Brenneis’ film, Eat at Bill's: Life in the Monterey Market (2009).
Wednesday, March 6: Demo Day 3:
Food store project
Monday, March 11: No School:
Spring Break
Wednesday, March 13: No School:
Spring Break
Monday, March 18: Read Ben Mervis,
“Curry Grows Wherever It Goes” (53-61); René Redzepi, “If It Does Well Here, It
Belongs Here” (87-95); Bini Pradhan, Heena Patel, and Isabel Caudillo, “Food is
a Gateway” (103-123); and Krishnendu Ray, “Culinary Difference Makes a
Difference” (151-159) from Chris Ying, editor, You and I Eat the Same: On
the Countless Ways Food and Cooking Connect Us to One Another (2018).
Wednesday, March 20: Read Osayi
Endolyn, “Fried Chicken is Common Ground,” from You and I Eat the Same
(71-77); and watch “Fried Chicken,” Ugly Delicious, Netflix (2018). In
class reading: Psyche A. Williams-Forson, Building Houses out of Chicken
Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (2006).
Monday, March 25: Class guests: Lisa
Marr and Paolo Davanza, filmmakers who run the Echo Park Film Center (www.echoparkfilmcenter.org)
in Los Angeles.
Wednesday, March 27: Demo Day 4:
Food heritage project
Monday, April 1: Read Priya
Krishna, “WhatsApp Is Changing the Way India Talks About Food,” New York
Times (November 23, 2018); Amanda Mull, “Instagram Food Is a Sad, Sparkly
Lie,” Eater (July 6, 2017); Kim Severson, “Neighbor, Can You Spare a
Plum?” New York Times (June 10, 2009); Nassos Stylianou, Clara Guibourg
and Helen Briggs, “Climate change food calculator: What's your diet's carbon
footprint?” BBC News (December 13, 2018); and read/browse Equity at the
Table on Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/equityatthetable/
Wednesday, April 3: Zine workshop
with Matt Collins and Anders Lyon, Gleeson librarians. Readings TBD.
Monday, April 8: Read Adam Harris,
“Millions of College Students Are Going Hungry: A new government report
highlights just how pervasive the problem,” The Atlantic (January 9,
2019). Demo Day 5: Community dinner storytell project. Food/Culture/Storytelling
students will provide stories for the free community dinner at St Cyprian’s
Church, organized by students enrolled in Rachel Brand’s Community Garden
Outreach class. (This event runs past our classtime; please plan accordingly.)
Wednesday, April 10: Read Joshua
Sbicca, “Introduction: Food as Social Justice Politics,” in Food Justice
Now! Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle (2018), pp. 1-22. In class
reading: Alison Hope Alkon and Christie Grace McCullen, “Whiteness and Farmers
Markets: Performances, Perpetuations … Contestations?” Antipode (2011),
pp 937-959.
Monday, April 15: Watch Scott
Hamilton Kennedy, The Garden (2008): 80 minutes; and read Janelle
Bitker, “A Meal for the Masses,” East Bay Express (June 13, 2018); and Stephanie
Parker, “Edible Landscapes Are Un-Lawning America,” Civil Eats (January
14, 2019). Display workshop with Carol Spector, Gleeson librarian.
Wednesday, April 17:
Read selections from Monica M. White’s Freedom Farmers: Agricultural
Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement (2019). In class reading: Black
Panther Party, “Free Breakfast for Schoolchildren Program” and “Free Food
Program,” in David Hiliard, editor, The Black Panther Party: Service to the
People Programs (University of New Mexico Press, 2008): 30-39.
Monday, April 22: Demo Day 6:
Food Activism display in Gleeson Library.
Wednesday, April 24: TBD
Monday, April 29: Watch Agnès
Varda, The Gleaners and I (2000): 82 minutes.
Wednesday, Mary 1: Read Sandra
Cate, “‘Breaking Bread with a Spread’ in a San Francisco County Jail,” Gastronomica:
The Journal of Critical Food Studies (Summer 2008): 17-24.
Monday, May 6: Gleaning workshop
Wednesday, May 8: Demo Day 7:
Gleaning project
Please
note: Three class periods – February 6, February 11, and April 8 – stretch
beyond our regular ending time of 6:25. Please plan, alter, or tweak your
schedule so that you can attend and participate fully in these class events.
If, however, you cannot stay after 6:25, no problem. You will not be penalized.
Throughout
the semester, I will offer extra credit for attending campus and local
food-related events and writing a one-page reflection. Some of these events
include: Rodrigo Dorfman’s documentary, This Taco Truck Kills Fascists, as
part of the SF IndieFest, Roxie Theater, Mission, SF, $13 (Saturday, February
2, 2:45 pm); Berkeley Food Institute’s panel, Hungry for Change: Emerging Food
Systems Leaders, Wurster Hall, Room 112, UC Berkeley (Friday, February 8, 5-7
pm; Info and free registration: https://bit.ly/2DpILTz); The 17th Annual USF
Human Rights Film Festival, Presentation Theater, USF (March 21-23, 2019); and USF’s
10th Annual Social Justice Seder, Fromm Hall, Maraschi Room, USF (Tuesday,
April 9, 6:30 pm).
There is
no final in this class.
Attendance
Policy
Attendance
is crucial. Missing class (or attending class unprepared) will significantly
affect your final grade. If you do miss class, contact a classmate to find out
what you missed and ask to borrow her or his notes. Then, do it again with a
different classmate. If after doing this you still have questions, email me.
Please note that missing a Demo Day is brutal. You lose 10 points or an entire
grade. Don’t do it!
Academic
Integrity
Plagiarism
is using another person’s words, works, and/or ideas without giving appropriate
credit. Plagiarism is a serious violation of academic honor and personal
integrity and can result in failing an assignment, being removed from this
course, or even being asked to leave USF. Plus, it’s just lazy.
Grading
10% Demo Day
1: Everything I ate and drank yesterday project
10% Demo Day
2: Food celebrity/food media project
10% Demo Day
3: Food store project
10% Demo Day
4: Food heritage project
10% Demo Day
5: Community dinner storytell project
10% Demo Day
6: Food Activism display in Gleeson
Library
10% Demo Day
7: Gleaning project
30% Class
Participation (which includes quizzes, homework, and
most importantly listening, contributing, and participating
in class and on Demo Days)
Note:
If at any point you wish to discuss your grade, please set up a face-to-face
meeting with me, preferably earlier rather than later in the semester.
Rules
1. In
class and on field trips, no drinking out of non-reusable containers.
2. During
the first day of class we will discuss and agree upon further class rules. We
may even decide to eliminate rule #1.
