Nature, Sustainability, and the Earth courses
First-Year Seminar courses
* course also fulfills an Indianapolis Community Requirement credit
† course offered as an Honors First-Year Seminar option
‡ course offered to both Honors and non-Honors students
Instructor
TBA
Course Description
Coming soon.
Instructor
Jesse Van Gerven
Course Description
This FYS will explore the stories that people tell each other about food. Stories and narratives are extraordinarily powerful tools that people develop, use, and share for making sense of the world and making their way through it. Stories give structure and meaning to our lives. Stories shape our perceptions of food and what food means to us. We swim through a sea of stories about which foods are good to eat, and which foods are bad to eat; what foods are healthy, and what foods are unhealthy; stories about where food comes from, how it is prepared, and by whom; as well as stories about the nature of human societies and our relationships with other species and the environment.
In this course we will begin an exploration of these stories, their deeper meanings, and the connections between them across different places, different times, and different social locations. We will explore a wide variety of “texts” including children’s stories and nursery rhymes, short stories, novels, films, recipes and cookbooks, investigative journalism, TikTok and other videos, as well as academic articles and books. This will include exploring various elements of different “food cultures” from around the world and from different periods of time. Later, we will focus more specifically on stories about good and bad food, including the scientific stories of nutrition and food science. This will lead us to yet other stories about food politics and how decisions about food are made and by whom, which leads to yet more stories about food companies and their roles in the food system. Throughout the course you will have many opportunities to critically engage with these materials, issues, and ideas. We will do some hands-on, experiential learning at Butler’s campus farm, you will have an opportunity to do some creative work writing a children’s story, nursery rhyme, or poem, as well as other individual and group projects and assignments.