Course Syllabus

 

 

Description of Course

"You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together," the American chef and travel documentarian Anthony Bourdain once said. His food-focused journeys - through fabulous restaurants, street kitchens, and rural local treats - showed the sheer range of food cultures and the many ways people use food in a local context. It echoes the 19th-century gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's famous line: "Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you who you are."

Anthropologists study how cultural identity is shaped, and in this course we focus on the often-surprising link between humans and food. Eating is more than sustenance - more than eating what tastes good. When we buy food and eat it, we communicate meaning: we create identities, maintain social bonds, and sustain cultures. Eating is a nutritional act, but it's just as much a social and cultural one.

How does educational level shape what you buy? Why isn't Thanksgiving the same without a turkey? Why does eating a burger read as friend-bonding to some and as a climate issue to others? And why do Michelin-starred restaurants in Copenhagen flaunt their use of sustainable, local, seasonal ingredients and natural wine? These are some of the questions we'll explore in Anthropology of Food.

Most case studies focus on Europe, and Copenhagen specifically, building an intercultural understanding of other societies as well as our own. Sessions bring the theory to life through guest lecturers and fieldwork — food markets, dive bars, Middle Eastern kebab joints, wine tastings, and the neighborhoods of Copenhagen themselves.

Students will get acquainted with anthropological perspectives on food, immerse themselves in Scandinavian eating culture and the Nordic culinary revival, and investigate the role of the city in rethinking our food systems.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, students should have:

• a sense of Danish and international culinary cultures, and how these relate to broader cultural patterns
• a deeper understanding of food culture in their home country, using Denmark as a case model for comparison
• an understanding of how food forges identity, both individually and collectively
• the ability to think critically about food as a reflection of social, political, and economic conditions
• an understanding of the evolving role of gastronomy in reshaping cultural identity
• a stronger grasp of how anthropology and sociology approach the study of food
• the ability to apply anthropological methods of inquiry to food and culture

Readings

There is no textbook. All readings are posted on Canvas. Below are a few examples: 

• Bajc, Vida. "Tourist Gaze." In The Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture, edited by Dale Southerton. London: Sage, 2011.
• Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Routledge, 1984.
• Fischler, Claude. "Food, Self, and Identity." Social Science Information 27, no. 2 (June 1988): 275–292.
• Fox, Robin. "Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective."
• Geertz, Clifford. "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture." In The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1973.
• Korsmeyer, Carolyn. "Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (2002).
• Leer, Jonathan. "The Rise and Fall of New Nordic Cuisine." Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 8, no. 1 (2016).
• Mührmann-Lund, J. "Food Policing in Early Modern Danish Towns." Rural Landscapes: Society, Environment, History 3, no. 1 (2016): 1–13.
• Orange, Richard. "Fascist Food Fight?" Public Radio International, April 8, 2012.
• Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Press, 2006.
• Ramsden, James. "Eating with the Eyes." The Guardian, January 28, 2011.
• Reicher, A., and Yael Raviv. "Falafel Nation: Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel." Dialectical Anthropology 40 (2016).
• Skinner, Jonathan. A Four-Part Introduction to the Interview: An Ethnographic Approach. Berg Publishers, 2012.
• Swinbank, Vicki A. "The Sexual Politics of Cooking: A Feminist Analysis of Culinary Hierarchy in Western Culture." Journal of Historical Sociology 15, no. 4 (December 2002).
• Taylor, Chloe. "Foucault and the Ethics of Eating." Foucault Studies, no. 9 (September 2010): 71–88.
• Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, Tine, and Helle Ploug Hansen. "Managing Uncertainties, Gaining Control: The Magic of Foods and Words." In Between Magic and Rationality: On the Limits of Reason in the Modern World, edited by Vibeke Steffen, Steffen Jöhncke, and Kirsten Marie Raahauge. Museum Tusculanum, 2015.
• Trubek, Amy B. The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. University of California Press, 2008.
• Veblen, Thorstein. "Conspicuous Consumption." Chapter 4 in The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. Dover Publications, 1899.
• Wallace, David Foster. "Consider the Lobster." Gourmet, August 2004.

Field Studies

Two field studies during the semester give you the chance to explore - and taste - the material firsthand.

Guest Lectures

We'll go out to visit locations, or have speakers visit us in class. These will be announced during the semester.

Expectations of the Students

Attend every class unless prevented by an emergency. Complete the assigned reading and come ready to discuss it in depth. Turn in assignments on time.

Anthropology runs on in-class debate and cultural interpretation, which demands full engagement - laptops and smartphones are not permitted in class. If you need a computer for note-taking, contact the Office of Academic Support to request accommodations. You may occasionally be asked to use a device for quick, ad-hoc research; misuse of that trust will affect your engagement grade. You may also be called on at random to summarize key points from the reading, so come prepared.

Participate actively in class and in the field, and stay open to your classmates' interpretations. The goal is an environment where we learn as much from each other as from the texts themselves - everyone is expected to help sustain that.

AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, or similar) are not permitted for any written work in this course - reading responses, field notes, or essays. The point of the course is to build your own analytical and observational skills; outsourcing that defeats the purpose. Assignments found to rely on AI-generated content will be treated as an Honor Code violation.

Approach to Teaching

Class covers material through lectures, videos, discussions, individual and group presentations, guest lectures, and field trips, with periodic breakout groups for closer analysis. Several sessions take place outside the classroom to experience food firsthand - locations will always be near DIS, with maps and addresses provided in advance, and you're expected to arrive on time. Office hours are held after class or by appointment.

Instructor

Christian Martinez. Journalist, anthropologist, and freelance writer working primarily in reportage and long-form journalism. MA in Cultural Anthropology and Hispanic Studies, University of Copenhagen.

Evaluation

Students are evaluated on their ability to understand, discuss, and communicate the theories of Anthropology of Food, and to interpret them meaningfully. Group work - in class and in the field - and your contribution to that group effort factor into the grade. The Group Project specifically has both a written and an oral component: Each group submits a written report and presents its findings to the class.

Grading

Your grade consists of four assignments and your participation in class, weighted as follows:

Assignment	Percent
Assignment 1 - Thick description	15%
Assignment  2 - Ethnographic photography	15%
Assignment 3 - Ethnographic Interviewing	20%
Assignment 4 - Group Project (written + oral presentation)	20%
Participation	30%

 

A Memorable Meal and Participation

Early in the semester, you'll write a short, ungraded description of a meal you remember clearly - no theory required, just the memory itself. In the final week, you'll reread it and write a brief analytical companion piece, applying concepts from across the course to the same meal.

Neither part is graded on its own. But completing both, and bringing them to our final session, is required for full course engagement — and is factored into your Participation grade accordingly. The exercise works best as an honest, low-stakes record of how your own thinking has changed, not as a polished piece of writing, so treat it that way.

Students must always check canvas for changes, but here is a PDF of the syllabus