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Food, Body and Society

Module description

This module examines the relationship between food and the body, as well as how foodways and food systems shape social bodies, from families, to religious communities and social classes, to nations. You will study socially variable ideas about healthy eating; conceptions of food as medicine; food prohibitions and avoidances; how commensality—eating together—may forge shared identities, whether embraced or enforced; how cuisine relates to social class; how food and foodways may transmit or transform memory; and the role of food and foodways among migrant and diaspora populations. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

You will read works on food, the body and society produced within a range of disciplines, including nutrition, medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, religious studies, literary studies, and philosophy. Through engagement with the literature, you will gain historical and comparative insights, and develop critical perspectives on the relationship between food and bodies--from the individual to the social. The module will prepare you for their own research in the field of study, whether academic or within the context of public institutions, industries, or third sector organisations with an interest in food and foodways, consumption, and diets.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand comparatively the range of ways in which individuals use food to sustain, shape, and give meaning to their bodies
• 2. Understand comparatively the range of ways in which social groups use food to constitute and reproduce communities

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Adeptly compare and contrast the relationship between food, the body and society over time and across social and cultural contexts
• 4. Critically assess the social dynamics through which food is used in the construction of individual and social bodies

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Independently identify and analyze sources pertaining to the relationship between food, the body and society in various specific contexts
• 6. Present relevant information in support of coherent and persuasive arguments pertaining to the relationship between food, the body and society in various specific contexts

Syllabus plan

The module will be structured as a reading and discussion seminar. The following themes will likely be covered, with minor variation from year to year depending upon the availability and current research of lecturers contributing to the module:

• The human experience of food, from necessity to pleasure
• Food, eating and the making of individual bodies
• Food and/as medicine
• Food prohibitions and avoidances
• Food, choice and social class
• Commensality
• Cuisine
• Food, migration and diaspora
• Food and knowledge, from experience to memory
• Food and the Earth in the anthropocene

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Appadurai, Arjun (1988) “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1): 3-24.

Douglas, Mary (1991 [1966]) ‘The abominations of Leviticus’, in Purity and Danger (London: Routledge), pp. 42-58.

Fischler, Claude (2011) ‘Commensality, society and culture’, Social Science Information , 50 (3-4): 528-48.

Gill, Christopher, Tim Whitmarsh and John Wilkins, eds. (2009) Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge).

Korsmeyer, Carolyn and David Sutton (2011) ‘The sensory experience of food’, in Food, Culture and Society , 14 (4): 461-75.

Lang, Tim and Michael Heasman (2004) Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets (Earthscan).

Mintz, Sidney W. (2008) ‘Food and diaspora’, Food, Culture and Society 11 (4): 509-23.

Rozin, Paul (1999) “Food is fundamental, fun, frightening, and far-reaching,” Social Research 66 (1): 9-30.

Sobo, Elisa (1997 [1994]) ‘The sweetness of fat: health, procreation, and sociability in Rural Jamaica’, in Nicole Landry Sault, Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 132-154.

Warde, Alan (1997) Consumption, Food and Taste: Culinary Antinomies and Commodity Culture . London: Sage. 

Key words search

Food, consumption, health