Pathways

Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia - Food Studies Minor

Background/Overview:

The Food Studies program positions food at the center of academic inquiry, calling attention to the multifaceted ways food, and discourses surrounding it, influence us as not only as biological beings, but social and cultural actors as well. The Food Studies Minor requires students to engage multiple theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, transcending individual disciplinary constraints in order to explore food in innovative ways. Food as the object of scholarly attention is not new. Many features of food are commonly explored across academic disciplines, from chemistry, biology and environmental to , , and the social sciences. The minor seeks to guide students in questioning the very foundations of what we consider “food” to be, challenging them to consider how food - its naming, production, distribution, and consumption - is historically contingent and, as critical food studies researchers note, is simultaneously a site of pleasure and power dynamics.

History:

The Food Studies program at Spelman College was approved as an academic minor in fall 2015. Currently, it is housed in two academic divisions under the leadership of Dr. Kimberly Jackson, chemistry and biochemistry and Drs. Daryl White and Ashanti Reese, and . Other key members are Dr. Mona Phillips, sociology and anthropology and Mr. Robert Hamilton, art and art history.

A ten-year project in the making (with a faculty food group, a student Slow Food Chapter, campus gardens, food brown bag series and funding from an outside agency), this interdisciplinary minor positions food in the center of academic inquiry.

The program poses questions about food that can only be answered from multiple perspectives and requires a form of critical thinking that transcends individual disciplinary constraints. Many features of food are commonly explored in many academic disciplines, from chemistry, biology and to economics, history, and anthropology.

Students enrolled in the food studies minor have the opportunity to take courses at Spelman and cross-register at local colleges and universities to take other approved food courses. Food studies courses currently offered at Spelman include: Cellular Food Toxicology, Food Chemistry, Nutrition and Cancer, Food and Culture, Caribbean : Food and Sustainability, Food in the City and Poverty and Social Justice.

Goals of the Minor: Upon completion of the minor, students will be able to do the following:

• Develop a global and comparative perspective about food’s cultural, social, and biological significance • Develop an intersectional framework from which to understand gendered experiences of food production, distribution, and consumption • Understand that food lies at the nexus of multiple dimensions—environmental, political, biological, cultural, etc. — and approaches to addressing food-related problems must be multifaceted; Apply theoretical approaches to studying food to real world problems • Examine the ways food is centered in political discourses in both domestic and global spheres (e.g., social welfare policies, conglomeration of food corporation, food system, globalization, constructions of world hunger)

Food Studies Faculty

Kimberly Jackson, Ph.D. (Director) Chemistry and Biochemistry Course(s): Food Chemistry

Sheri Davis-Faulkner, Ph.D. Sociology and Anthropology Course(s): Poverty and Social Justice

Robert Hamilton Art and Art History Course(s): Dish, Politics and the Urban Garden

Kathleen Phillips-Lewis, Ph.D. History Course(s): Caribbean Economic History: Food and Sustainability Daryl White, Ph.D. (Director) Sociology and Anthropology Course(s): Food and Culture

Anna Polwney Biology Course(s): Nutrition and Cancer

Ashanté Reese, Ph.D. Sociology and Anthropology Course(s): Food and the City

Fatemeh Shafiei, Ph.D. Political Course(s): Sustainability

Structure:

To fulfill the Food Studies minor, students must complete four food-related classes and one independent study project for a total of twenty (20) credit hours, including the required nexus course, Food and Culture, plus one food-related course from Arts or Humanities, one course from the Natural Sciences and one course from the Social Sciences. Classes may be selected from the list below; although more courses are being developed. Students do have the option to take approved food-related courses at other area institutions. All courses must be passed with a grade of “C” or better.

Courses:

• CHE 159 Food Chemistry • ANT 344 Food and Culture (required) • ANT 330 Food and the City • BIO 329 Nutrition and Cancer • SOC 230 Poverty and Social Justice • HIS 362 Caribbean Economic History: Food and Sustainability • BIO 482/CHE 411 Food Toxicology • Independent Study* * Directed Studies with individual faculty, depending on department

Engagement Opportunity:

Not all students have a civic or community engagement focus, but many of them do, with Spelman’s emphasis on community-based partnerships in the West End and greater Atlanta. The Bonner Center works with faculty to provide opportunities for student engagement around food issues. The minor also lists this program through which students do internships.

The Georgia Organics Farm to School team is seeking an intern for a six-month term (approximately June 1-Nov. 30, 2017). Interns primarily will work on our Golden Radish Award October Farm-to-School Month, and Georgia Farm-to-School Summit programming. The internship will be based in our Atlanta office with work space available.

Internship Duties • Developing and testing activities for October Farm to School Month campaign • Assisting with the application review process for the Golden Radish Award • Developing and updating promotional and outreach materials • Compiling and organizing data and performing basic data analysis • Drafting resources for workshops, trainings, and other speaking engagements • Acting as a Georgia Organics representative at events • Supporting farm to school communications, including writing blog articles, supporting e-newsletter content, updating our farm to school website, and social media • Basic administrative support • Other duties, as needed

Interns are compensated at $12/hr. The internship is part time at approximately 10-16 hours a week.

Example of a Civic Project:

Essence Roberts, C’2017, participated in the Southern Foodways Alliance’s 2016 Oral History Workshop at Emory University in Atlanta. She was the only undergraduate student among the group of young scholars and documentarians chosen to study SFA’s methods and approaches to oral history fieldwork and collecting life stories of residents of the American South.

During the workshop, participants learned digital recording skills and techniques, listened to lectures from Atlanta-based historians and documentarians, visited with former SFA oral history narrators and collected an oral history interview. The session ended with participant presentations.

For her presentation, Roberts, a sociology major and food studies minor, conducted an oral history interview with Tassili Ma’at, owner of Tassili’s Raw Reality, a vegan café in Atlanta’s West End community.

Faculty Contact:

Kimberly Jackson, Ph.D. (Director) Chemistry and Biochemistry Course(s): Food Chemistry or

Daryl White, Ph.D. (Director) Sociology and Anthropology Course(s): Food and Culture