FRS 002H - Sec. 001 - (2 units) - CRN 93011 - W 4:10 – 6:30 pm - 25 Wellman
Food, Technology & Culture

Instructor: Carolyn Thomas de la Peña, Department of American Studies, College of Letters & Science

Description: UC Davis is an ideal site to explore the connections between food, technology, and cultural values within the United States. As the site of this summer’s agriculture and technology conference, as home to one of the leading food science programs, and as the future site of the Mondavi center of food and wine studies, this campus offers an excellent venue for students to investigate, first hand, the leading issues in food technology today. This course will introduce students to these issues through historical and current readings; familiarize them with food science as researched on this campus through class visits and lab tours; and encourage them to make connections between our classroom learning and the wider world of food technologies through site visits to stores in the Davis community. Our basic premise is that food is rarely just food but rather a repository for some of our fundamental values and beliefs. To discover this for themselves, students will engage in a variety of projects including weekly readings, weekly connection projects, written project reviews, and a final class debate.

Format: The seminar will meet for 2.5 hours each week for eight weeks. Students will read assigned material before each meeting and spend the first hour of each session discussing the reading as a group. The last part of each class will be spent on a project outside of the classroom. These projects range from library research trips to find additional connections or opposing views on readings to hands-on learning in labs on campus to in-store analysis in local spaces such as Safeway and GNC. Grading: Students will be given a letter grade on the quality of their participation in class discussion and connection projects—their ability to discuss the readings and the substance of their comments (25%); the quality of their written project reviews (35%); and the quality of their final debate (40%).

About the Instructor: Carolyn Thomas de la Peña has been assistant professor at UC Davis for two years. She is the author of The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American and is currently working on a book on food technology and American Culture. Her research interests include technology, material culture, gender, and foodways.