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Instructor Class Description

Time Schedule:

Julie Shayne
B CUSP 107
Bothell Campus

Discovery Core I: Individuals and Society

Through collaborative and interdisciplinary learning, students develop a knowledge base, skills, habits of inquiry, and imaginative vision. Focuses on individuals, society. Co-requisite: either B CUSP 101, B CUSP 104, or B CUSP 110.

Class description

THIS CLASS IS SECTION TWO OF BCUSP 104

Our class will explore the fundamental role of eating and food production in shaping processes of personal, cultural, and economic development. By focusing on the production, distribution, preparation, and eating of food across different times and places, we will consider how food practices can help us understand some crucial questions about culture and development. Among those questions are the following: • How do food practices act as “ingredients” in the creation of identity (political, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, etc.)? • How do food practices in the United States impact the rest of the planet, particularly in the Third World? • How have urbanization, modernization, and globalization changed food practices? • How do people collectively challenge the cockeyed distribution of abundant resources as manifest through food practices? Our inquiries into these and other question will blend disciplines from the social sciences and humanities, and will draw on a range of genres (literature, film, popular media, poetry, and so forth). Most important, the process of exploring our topic will give you a sustained opportunity to develop and practice some of the fundamental intellectual skills that will be key to your success in and beyond university life.

Student learning goals

To explore individual decisions about food consumption to social consequences around the world

To understand how food culture, globalization, gender, and economics are related to one another

To introduce students to the expectations, methods, and resources of university life

To increase skills in reading, writing, and research

To form links between academic life with forms of community engagement

To form a learning community with peers and professors

General method of instruction

Lectures, small and large group discussions, films, guest speakers, workshops, and fieldtrips.

Recommended preparation

You must also attend BCUSP 104B

Class assignments and grading

Assignments will be a combination of short and long writing assignments based on readings, films, discussions, and fieldtrips.

Critical analysis and clear writing will be central to receiving good grades.


The information above is intended to be helpful in choosing courses. Because the instructor may further develop his/her plans for this course, its characteristics are subject to change without notice. In most cases, the official course syllabus will be distributed on the first day of class.
Last Update by Julie Shayne
Date: 08/15/2007