Spring 2024

Everyone Eats: Food Culture, Security, Sustainability, and Media in New York City

Director:  Naomi Guttman, Professor of Literature and Creative Writing
Phone:  315-859-4780
Email:  nguttman@hamilton.edu

Our semester will focus on the study of food policy and culture and their effects on the environment, examining issues of identity, equity, sustainability, and security in the great “kitchen” of New York City.  We will focus on New York as a classroom in which we learn about our relationship to food via media and culture, as well as the environmental and social effects of food policy.  Field trips, courses, and independent studies will center on discovering the city via food cultures, sustainability, policy, and advocacy.

College 395: Food in the City

This is a course in food writing.  We will read about and explore the food culture of New York while learning about its rich historical, cultural, racial, and socioeconomic diversity. Local media outlets that focus on food, such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Eater, Grub Street, will provide the texts for most of our readings. Students will contribute to a weekly blog with different kinds of journalism about their food experiences.

College 396: Independent Study

Each student will contract with the director to pursue an independent project under the director’s supervision that stems from the internship experience and that relates in some way to the semester topics of sustainability, security, and/or food. Deadlines for this project will be outlined in the course calendar. The general expectation is that students will produce a written research paper (at least 12 pages, plus a bibliography/works cited).

College 397: Internship

This course is directly connected to a required internship.  Students will complete weekly electronic journals documenting their experience (what they are doing, what they’ve learned and how it connects to the themes of the semester). They will also be asked to consolidate journal entries into a summary at the mid-term and again at the end of the semester. In addition, the internship supervisor will be asked to write a short report which will contribute to the final grade. 4 days/week: M,T, Th, F. Grade: C/NC.

College 398: Seminar on Food, Security and Sustainability

As an international center for culture and commerce, New York offers a unique opportunity when it comes to food and questions of planning for food security and environmental and commercial sustainability. Students will read about these topics and prepare to meet and interview  people responsible for designing, implementing or advocating for changes in policy with regard to the environment, labor, sustainability, fair trade, nutrition, and hunger. Credit-bearing elective course for Environmental Studies.