Sociology of Food

This course examines food as a site of complex personal, political and cultural meanings, a space filled with growing contradictions for the modern eater. "What should we have for dinner?" is a question that has never been more confusing. If we are what we eat and how we eat, then who are we? Shifts in our diet, in our social patterns around eating, and in the meaning of food in our culture are explored. Have we become an "eating disordered" society? Why is it that our obsession with healthy eating has not made us healthier? Has the proliferation of food choices in the modern market brought us more pleasure in eating, or more anxiety?