American Studies 418
Food and American Culture
Spring 2015
Tuesdays, 4-6:45 pm in UH-319
Professor Elaine Lewinnek
Mailbox: UH-313
Office: UH-408
Office hours: Tuesdays, 2:15-4:00 pm; Thursdays, 10:00-11:30 am; and by appointment
Phone: 657-278-3595 or 657-278-2441
Email: elewinnek@fullerton.edu
“Food has a claim to be considered the world’s most important subject. It is what matters most to most
people for most of the time.” – Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto
“Food … is a highly condensed social fact … a marvelously plastic kind of collective representation.” –
Arjun Appadurai
Course Description
This course investigates food and identities in America, from the colonial era to the present, including
explorations of American ethnic food, the industrialization of food, and contemporary food movements.
We will examine food both in terms of how it is produced – farming, marketing, distribution – and what
it produces – sustenance, community, identity. Food is perhaps the most vitally important consumer
product, offering deep links to labor issues, gender politics, body images, ethnic formations,
industrialization, and globalization. As Claude Levi-Strauss has pointed out, “food is good to think” with.
Food studies is a rapidly emerging field within American Studies, building on our discipline’s
interdisciplinarity by borrowing from agronomists, anthropologists, antiquarians, ecologists, folklorists,
film critics, gender analysts, historians, nutritionists, sociologists, and others to understand how
foodways have mattered in America.
Required Texts
This course requires three books:
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Donna Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (Harvard
University Press, 2000)
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (Penguin, 2007)
Doug Sackman, Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden (University of California Press,
2007)
Additional readings are available online through this course’s TITANium site.
Course Objectives
In this course, students will:
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Develop a framework for understanding Americans’ food-based identities in the past and the
present, including hybridized creole identities;
identify intersections between foodways and race, ethnicity, class, gender, region, and
generation;
make connections between the production and consumption of food, including issues of labor,
environment, industrialization, marketing, and social justice in American eating;
and recognize the role of globalization in American food cultures.
Student Learning Goals
In this course, students will:
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Demonstrate mastery of the course objectives listed above;
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gain a thorough understanding of cultural diversity by examining the creative tension between
unity, multiplicity, and hybridity in American food experiences;
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learn to discuss, critically analyze, and interpret a spectrum of food-related artifacts, ranging
from popular to folk to elite expressions, from mass media to the written word;
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participate in class discussions that encourage students to think critically about their own
foodways, considering multiple perspectives while making connections between the past and
the present;
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develop research, writing, and expressive skills that will allow students to see connections
among complex materials and will enable them to clearly communicate their understanding of
food in American history.
Graduate students will accomplish all those goals to a high standard.
Prerequisites
Upper-division standing.
Attendance Policy
You are responsible for knowing what happens in class. It is impossible to receive an A in class
participation if you miss more than one class, and it is also extremely difficult to do well on the other
course assignments if you miss our class discussions. If you must be absent from class, please get notes
from a reliable classmate and then ask me if you have specific questions.
Assignments and Examinations
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Class participation (100 points): You must come to class prepared to discuss that week’s reading.
If necessary, I may institute brief in-class reading quizzes.
Class discussion leadership (100 points): Each of you will sign up for one week when you and a
partner or a group of three will be responsible for leading class discussion by offering a fiveminute presentation framing that week’s reading, then proposing questions for your classmates
to consider. Optionally, you may also choose to bring food to share during your discussionleadership week, in accordance with that week’s academic themes.
Midterm essay: movie analysis (week 11; 300 points): Apply the categories you have learned in
class readings and discussion to analyze a food scene in a movie of your choice.
Class blog post (100 points): At least once during the semester (and not during your class
discussion leadership), post a reading response to our class’s public blog, reflecting on that
week’s reading and linking to supplementary texts that help you think about a particular theme
of food culture. Model blog entries from previous iterations of this course are available at
http://amst418.wordpress.com/
Final essay proposal (week 13, 50 points): Email me one paragraph explaining what model you
have chosen, what primary source(s) you have selected, why, and any concerns you have now
about your final essay.
Final research essay (due week 16, 350 points): Choose a model of food research from our
course readings. You may investigate a particular food controversy, food marketing campaign,
food-centered oral history, historic cookbook, set of restaurant menus, issue of food labor, or
other primary evidence of American foodways. In an eight-page essay, analyze your chosen
primary source(s), using our course readings to give context to your analysis. How does this
primary source reveal Americans’ food-based identities, including race, class, gender,
creolization, region, generation, ethnicity and/or embodiment? How is food consumption
connected to food production, including industrialization, globalization, and/or the
environment?
For all assignments, extensive further guidelines will be provided in class and on our TITANium site.
Graduate students who enroll in this class will be expected to perform exceptional work, including
writing at least two blog posts and a longer final essay of 12 pages. Graduate students will also write an
additional 5-page essay (worth 150 points), reviewing an additional secondary source about the cultural
history of American food, to be chosen in consultation with the instructor. In addition, graduate
students will make a brief in-class presentation about the book you chose for your book review,
informing your classmates about that book’s argument and analyzing its connections to course themes.
Those in-class-presentations will be worth 50 points. Thus, while undergraduates in this course will earn
a total of 1000 points, graduate students in this class will earn a total of 1300 points. Due dates for
graduate-student book reviews and presentations will be arranged during the first two weeks of classes.
Grading
Plus and minus grades will be used. Grades will be calculated using a standard scale. An A+ is 98-100%, A
is 93-97, A- is 90-92, B+ is 88-89, B is 83-87, B- is 80-82, C+ is 78-79, C is 73-77, C- is 70-72, D+ is 68-69, D
is 63-67, D- is 60-62, and F is anything 59% or below.
In assessing essays, an “A” essay is one that responds completely to the assignment and meets four
criteria to a very high standard:
 Clear and specific writing that
 thoughtfully analyzes primary sources,
 articulates connections to the course readings,
 and includes your own original ideas.
A “B” essay also does those four things, yet one is not to a high standard. The writing may be vague,
repetitive, or overly-general; the primary sources may be shallowly analyzed; the connections to course
readings may be skimpy; or the ideas may only reiterate class discussions. A “C” essay lacks a high
standard in two areas; C essays are often logically inconsistent. A “D” essay lacks a high standard in
three areas. An “F” essay does not respond to the assignment.
Please keep all graded assignments so that any discrepancies can be easily and fairly straightened out.
Late work will be penalized one letter grade for each week late, unless you have made arrangements
with me beforehand. Make-up exams will be available to those with a valid excuse before the scheduled
exam. Incompletes will be granted only due to exceptional circumstances.
Other Policies
Laptop use is discouraged in class. You cannot do the course reading well on a smartphone, so do not try
to.
Extra Credit. This course does not include an extra-credit option.
Academic Integrity. Plagiarism – using the words of another author without citing your source – will lead
to a 0 on the assignment and a report to the campus Judicial Affairs Officer. Familiarize yourself with
CSUF’s academic dishonesty policy, which can be found in the current student handbook or on the web
at http://www.fullerton.edu/deanofstudents/judicial/StudentResources.asp
Disability Accommodation. If you have a disability or special need for which you are or may be
requesting an accommodation, please inform me and contact the Office of Disability Support
Services, located in University Hall 101, as early as possible in the term. For more information, the
Office of Disability Support Services can be reached by calling (657) 278-3117 or visiting their
website at www.fullerton.edu/DSS/. Confidentiality will be protected.
Emergency Procedures: Please also familiarize yourself with CSUF’s emergency preparedness
procedures, available online at http://prepare.fullerton.edu/. In case of any official campus closing, this
class will continue online through our TITANium site, especially its Forums feature.
Whenever you have questions, I encourage you to talk to me, in class, after class, by email, or in my
office hours. I look forward to a thoughtful semester exploring American food culture.
AMST 418 COURSE SCHEDULE
(T) indicates TITANium links
WEEK
1. Jan. 20 & 23
2. Jan. 27 & 29
TOPIC
READING ASSIGNMENTS
Introduction: Is
Food Good to Think
With?
This syllabus and our TITANium site (T)
Theories of
Connection
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of
Sugar in Modern History (1985), Introduction &
Chapter 1 (T)
Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, Ricardo Salvador
and Olivier De Schutter, “How a National Food
Policy Could Save Millions of American Lives,”
Washington Post (Nov. 7, 2014) (T)
M.F.K. Fisher, Foreword to The Gastronomical Me
(1943) (T)
3. Feb. 3 & 5
Early American
Hybridity
Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat, chapters 1-3
4. Feb. 10 & 11
Nature & Culture
Sackman, Orange Empire, Introduction and Part
One
Historic images of orange crate labels (T)
5. Feb. 17 & 19
Nature & Labor
Sackman, Orange Empire, Parts Two and Three
6. Feb. 24 &
26
Inventing
Thanksgiving
Janet Siskind, “The Invention of Thanksgiving: A
Ritual of American Nationality” (T)
Honor Sachs, “Thanksgiving and Civil War” (T)
Guy Rundle, “The Meaning of Black Friday” (T)
7. March 3 & 5
Raced Foods
Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat, chapters 4 & 5
Psyche Williams-Forson, “More than Just the ‘Big
Piece of Chicken:’ The Power of Race, Class, and
Food in American Consciousness” (T)
Samuel Gompers, excerpt from “Meat vs. Rice:
American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism:
Which Shall Survive?” (1901) (T)
8. March 10 &
12
Contemporary
Creoles
Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat, chapters 6-8
Anzia Yezierska, excerpt from The Breadgivers
(1925) (T)
Kogi BBQ Taco Truck website (T)
9. March 17 &
19
Eating the Other
Meredith Abarca, “Authentic or Not, It’s Original”
(T)
Laresh Jayasanker, “Tortilla Politics: Mexican Food,
Globalization, and the Sunbelt” (T)
Lisa Heldke, “Let’s Cook Thai: Recipes for
Colonialism” (T)
10. March 24 &
26
Gendered Foodways
Spring Break is
the week of
March 30
11. April 7 & 9
Fabio Parasecoli, “Feeding Hard Bodies: Food and
Masculinity in Men’s Fitness Magazines” (T)
Christopher Carrington, “Feeding Lesbigay
Families” (T)
Fats Waller, “All that Meat and No Potatoes”
(1940) (T)
Midterm
Midterm essay due April 7
Dylan Clark, “The Raw and the Rotten: Punk
Cuisine” (T)
12. April 14 & 16
Embodiment
Laura Fraser, “The Inner Corset: A Brief History of
Fat in the United States” (T)
Richard A. O’Connor, “De-medicalizing Anorexia:
Opening a New Dialogue” (T)
13. April 21 & 23
Contemporary Food
Labor
Richard Marosi, “Hardship on Mexico’s Farms, a
Bounty for U.S. Tables” (T)
Saru Jayaraman, Behind the Kitchen Door, chapters
1 and 2 (T)
Final essay proposals due April 23
14. April 28 & 30
Contemporary Food
Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma, Part I
15. May 5 & 7
16. May 12
Politics
Gary Taubes, “Is Sugar Toxic?” (T)
What’s for Dinner
Now?
Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma, Part III
Exam Week
Final essays due at 5 pm in my office, UH-408
Julie Guthman, “Can’t Stomach It: How Michael
Pollan, et al, Made Me Want to Eat Cheetos” (T)