Course description
Human beings need food and liquid to survive. Both are essential and at the same time scarce, at least at times. In every society there are restrictions regarding eating and drinking, some of which are temporal, seasonal, or with reference to age, gender, status or context. From a cultural point of view, food is always connected with ideas and values. A meal can be read as a syntagma and each course refers to a semantic field. Who was the cook, who served the meal and who sat at the table are all factors that matter. Eating and drinking indicate social differences and create contexts. There is a difference between whether I meet a person for a lunch at noon or for a dinner after 8 p.m., if the appointment is for a meal or for a drink, whether we drink Champagne or a Bourbon. The seminar will look into the cultural construction of food and drinks from an anthropological perspective and includes case studies from around the world. In addition we shall look at our own society from a point of view which is transculturally informed.
The seminar includes the following themes: theory of symbols and of cultural boundaries. Food as a symbolic marker of cultural identity. Food in rituals, eating with gods. Food restrictions in world religions. Food and sexuality. Food and gender. Food movements. Food and diaspora, food as collective memory. Commensality as a social blueprint. Constructive drinking. World politics with food. Food and drinking as models of and models for society.
Seminar organization: every week each student will read one text from a reader to prepare for the next session. Each student has to fulfill three tasks once in the semester: (1) write the minutes of a single session, (2) read an additional text for a specific theme and make a 10-minute presentation in the classroom, (3) write a 12–15-page paper on a chosen topic. In the second half of the seminar the students will team up in small groups (2–4 people), gather material on symbolically loaded food items or socially dense eating or drinking contexts and prepare a Power Point presentation for one of the final sessions.

Syllabus
Week 1
Introduction
Reading: Beardsworth and Keil, ‘Chap. 1: Introduction’, pp. 1–12
Sociology of Food and Eating
Reading: Beardsworth and Keil, ‘Chap. 3: Sociological Perspectives’, pp. 47–72

Week 2
Constructive Drinking
Reading: Douglas, ‘Chap. 1: A distinctive anthropological perspective’, pp. 3–15
Jewish Food
Reading: Buckser, ‘Keeping Kosher: Eating and Social Identity among the Jews of Denmark’, pp. 191–209

Week 3
Food, Narratives, and Memories
Reading: Mintz, ‘Chap. 1: Introduction’, pp. 1–16
Food and Power
Reading: Mintz, ‘Chap. 2: Food and Its Relationship to the Concept of Power’, pp. 17–31

Week 4
Food and Semantics
Reading: Barthes, ‘Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption’, in Counihan and Van Esterik (eds.), pp. 20–27 Structural Views
Reading: Lévi-Strauss, ‘Chap. 3: The Culinary Triangle’, in Counihan and Van Esterik (eds.), pp. 28–35

Week 5
The Senses and Taste
Reading: Brillat-Savarin, ‘Chap. 1: On Taste’, pp. 15–23; Bartoshuk, Linda M., ‘Chap. 2: Chemical Senses’, pp. 25–33; both in Korsmeyer (ed.)
Diaspora, Memory and Revitalization
Reading: Sutton, ‘Whole Foods’, pp. 120–30

Week 6
Sentiments of Belonging
Reading: Scholliers, ‘Chap. 1: Meals, Food Narratives, and Sentiments of Belonging in Past and Present’, in Scholliers (ed.), pp. 3–22
Historical Perspectives
Reading: Martin, ‘Chap. 7: Old People, Alcohol and Identity in Europe, 1300–1700’, in Scholliers (ed.), pp. 119–37

Week 7
Asia And Europe
Reading: Goody, ‘Chap. 5: The High and the Low. Culinary Culture in Asia and Europe’, in Korsmeyer (ed.) 2005, pp. 57–71
A Case Study – Kava in Tonga
Reading: Bott, ‘Chap. 10: The Kava ceremonial as a dream structure’, in Douglas (ed.), pp. 182–204

Week 8
Materialistic View on Food
Reading: Harris, ‘Chap. 1: Good to think or good to eat’, pp. 13–46
Cows in India
Reading: Harris, ‘Chap. 3: The Riddle of the Sacred Cow’, pp. 47–66

Week 9
Diaspora
Reading: Kunow, ‘Eating Indian(s). Food, Representation, and the Indian Diaspora in the United States’, in Döring, Heide and Mühleisen (eds.), pp. 151–75
Absence and Visibility of Food
Reading: Brosch, ‘Visual Victual. Iconographies of Food and Dining in Nineteenth-Century England’, pp. 209–35

Week 10
Gender and Food
Reading: Bordo, ‘Chap. 1: Hunger as Ideology’, in Scapp and Seitz (eds.), pp. 11–35 Food in Thailand
Reading: Esterik, ‘Feeding their Faith’, pp. 197–215

Week 11
Food in Italy
Reading: Counihan, ‘Chap. 3: Food, Power and Female Identity in Contemporary Florence’, in Counihan, 1999, pp. 43–60
Food in India
Reading: Parry, ‘The Symbolism of Food and Eating in North Indian Mortuary Rites’, pp. 612–30

Week 12
TV Chefs
Reading: Ashley et al., ‘Chap. 11: Television Chefs’, in Ashley et al (eds.), pp. 171–185
Dining Out
Reading: Finkelstein, ‘Chap. 13: Dining Out: The Hyperreality of Appetite’, in Scapp and Seitz, (eds.), 1998, pp. 201–215

Readings
Arnott, Margaret L., ed. (1975), ‘Gastronomy. The Anthropology of Food and Food Habits.’ The Hague, Paris (Mouton).

Ashley, Bod, et al, eds. (2004), ‘Food and Cultural Studies’. New York, London (Routledge).

Bourdieu, Pierre (1984), ‘Distinction – A Critique of the Judgement of Taste.’ Harvard (Keagan and Paul).

Beardsworth, Alan and Keil, Teresa (1997), ‘The Sociology of the Menu: An Invitation to the Study of Food and Society’, New York (Routledge).

Buckser, Andrew (1999), ‘Keeping Kosher: Eating and Social Identity among the Jews of Denmark’, Ethnology 38(3):191–209

Counihan, Carole and Van Esterik, Penny (1997), ‘Food and Culture – A Reader.’ New York (Routledge).

Counihan, Carole M. (1999), ‘The Anthropology of Food and the Body: Gender, Meaning, and Power.’ New York, London (Routledge).

Curtin, Deane W. & Heldke, Lisa M., eds. (1992), ‘Cooking, Eating, Thinking. Transformative Philosophies of Food.’ Bloomington (Indiana UP).

Döring, Tobias, Heide, Markus & Mühleisen, Susanne, eds. (2003), ‘Eating Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Food.’ Heidelberg (Winter).

Douglas, M. 1987 (ed.), ‘Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on drink from anthropology.’ Cambridge (Cambridge UP).

Esterik, P. van (1986), ‘Feeding their Faith: Recipe Knowledge among Thai Buddhist Women.’ Food and Foodways, 1: 197–215.

Harris, Marvin (1986), ‘Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture.’ London (Allen & Unwin).

Korsmeyer, Carolyn, ed. (2005), ‘The Taste Culture Reader: Experiencing Food and Drink.’ Oxford (Berg).

Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1978), ‘The Origin of Table Manners.’ London (Jonathan Cape).

Logue, A.W. (2004), ‘The Psychology of Eating and Drinking.’ New York (Brunner-Routledge).

Mintz, Sidney W. (1996), ‘Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom. Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past.’ Boston, Mass (Beacon Press).

Parry, J. (1985), ‘Death and Digestion: The symbolism of food and eating in north Indian mortuary rituals.’ MAN, 20. pp. 612–30.

Scapp, Ron, and Seitz, Brian (eds.) (1998), ‘Eating Culture.’ Albany (State University of New York Press).

Scholliers, Peter (ed.) (2001), ‘Food, Drink and Identity.’ New York (Berg).

Scott, Susie (2009), ‘Making Sense of Everyday Life.’ Cambridge (Polity Press).

Sutton, David (2001), ‘Whole Foods: Revitalization through Everyday Synesthetic Experience, Anthropology and Humanism’, 25 (2): 120–130.

Telfer, Elizabeth (1996), ‘Food for Thought. Philosophy and Food.’ London (Routledge).