Courses
In the six years since the Sustainable Food Project was founded, Yale has produced a bumper crop of undergraduate, graduate, and professional coursework related to food and agriculture. These courses are offered in a range of disciplines, including economics, psychology, African studies, classics, and political science.
Spring 2009 Courses on Food, Agriculture, & the Environment:
PLSC 368
Global Politics
Stathis Kalyvas
T 1.30-3.20
Topics in international politics, political sociology, contemporary history, security studies, and political economy. Development of broad analytic and synthetic skills by studying the politics of international aid, food production, environmental management, global governance, state failure, or terrorist threats.
EVST 255 01 (20726) /PLSC215/F&ES255
Environmental Politics and Law
John Wargo
TTh 10.30-11.20
Exploration of the politics, policy, and law associated with attempts to manage environmental quality and natural resources. Themes of democracy, liberty, power, property, equality, causation, and risk. Case histories include air quality, water quality and quantity, pesticides and toxic substances, land use, agriculture and food, parks and protected areas, and energy.
ITAL 305 01 (22865) /LITR337
Italian Food and Literature [TR]
Risa Sodi
TTh 9.00-10.15
The intersection of food and literature in Italy from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Dante, Boccaccio, and the earliest cookbooks) to the modern age (the futurists, Calvino, and others). Discussion of foodways, or how food is tied to religions, holidays, gender roles and identities, and domestic economies. Consideration of film.
PSYC 411 01 (21785) /PSYC611
What We Eat and Why
Kelly Brownell
M 3.30-5.20
Topics pertaining to food, nutrition, and behavior. Forces that affect what humans eat, the impact of modern food conditions, and actions that might be taken to improve the nutrition landscape. Factors include the business of modern agriculture, food industry practices, human biology, the law, politics, and globalization.
ARCG 226 01 (21639) /EVST226
Global Environmental History
Harvey Weiss
TTh 11.35-12.50
The dynamic relationship between environmental and social forces from the Pleistocene to the present. Pleistocene extinctions; transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture; origins of cities, states, and civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt; adaptations and collapses of early Old and New World civilizations in the face of environmental disasters; the destruction and reconstruction of the New World by the Old.
ECON 325 01 (20541) /INTS352
Economics of Developing Countries
Dean Karlan
MW 11.35-12.50
Analysis of current problems of developing countries. Emphasis on the role of economic theory in informing public policies to achieve improvements in poverty and inequality, and on empirical analysis to understand markets and responses to poverty. Topics include microfinance, education, health, agriculture, intrahousehold allocations, gender, and corruption.
CSJE 372 01 (24005)
Farming & Eating in the U.S.A.
Melina Shannon-DiPietro
T 1.30-3.20
How ideas of farming, food, and agriculture shape American society and culture.
Investigation of the role of the farmer in American society and the ways in which the national understanding of that role affects food policy and the way we eat. Examination of the role of the farmer in the American imagination, and the ways in which the realities of farming—formed by the development of commodity markets and agricultural subsidies—differ from this imagined figure. Topics include the socioeconomic dynamics of farming, the relationship between the producer and the consumer, the differences between farming and gardening, and the role of urban agriculture as a tool of civic renewal.
HIST 120J 01 (21296) /WGSS428
Labor and Democracy in the Twentieth-Century United States
Jennifer Klein
M 3.30-5.20
A history of work, labor relations, social movements, and labor policy in the United States since 1890; the history of class politics and economic development in modern America. Racial and gender hierarchies from farms to factories to sweatshops; labor rights as part of broader struggles over citizenship rights and democracy. Topics include various forms of labor organizing and protest, limits and possibilities of solidarity, braceros and migrant workers, civil rights, the Cold War, politics and policy, and Wal-Mart.
SOCY 198 01 (21304) /AMST229/ER&M231/WGSS229/AFAM229
Health and Social Movements
Alondra Nelson
TTh 10.30-11.20
1 HTBA
Examination of how and why groups coalesce around issues of health and illness. Issues include racial discrimination and health; women's health and reproductive rights; sickle-cell anemia; environmental justice; breast cancer; and HIV/AIDS.
CENG 377 01 (20719) /ENVE377/F&ES60012
Water Quality Control
William Mitch
TTh 2.30-3.45
Study of the preparation of water for domestic and other uses and treatment of wastewater for recycling or discharge to the environment. Topics include processes for removal of organics and inorganics, regulation of dissolved oxygen, and techniques such as ion exchange, electrodialysis, reverse osmosis, activated carbon absorption, and biological methods.
ENG116
Writing Seminars II
TTh 11.35-12.50
Barbara Stuart
Why do we write about food? If we are what we eat, as your mother may have told you, surely food as a subject is of great consequence. In this course we will read essays by the luminaries of the food world; students will explore food from many angles, writing about the economic, political, cultural, emotional, and nutritional aspects that go into what we eat. The units in this course will explore the tension between the elite and the democratic, the professional and the amateur, the foreign and the home-grown, the expensive and the affordable. Assignments will focus on what might be called the “sub-genres” of the food essay: the factors that shape family meals, journalistic essays based upon certain recipes for beloved foods, and the food memoir. Research projects will explore how Americans have found and prepared good food from colonial times to the present. Finally, the class will set up and maintain a food blog as a forum for our joint food discoveries.
ANTH 414 01 (21589) /ANTH575
Urban Anthropology and Global History
Helen Siu
W 1.30-3.20
A structural analysis of urbanization in agrarian societies undergoing modern transformation. Topics include the nature of migration, rural and urban adaptive strategies, ethnicity, political organization, and cultural conflict.
ENAS 360 01 (21258)/F&ES96018/ENVE360
Green Engineering and Sustainable Design
Julie Zimmerman
MW 2.30-3.45
Study of green engineering, focusing on key approaches to advancing sustainability through engineering design. Topics include current design, manufacturing, and disposal processes; toxicity and benign alternatives; policy implications; pollution prevention and source reduction; separations and disassembly; material and energy efficiencies and flows; systems analysis; biomimicry; and life cycle design, management, and analysis.
Prerequisites: CHEM 112a and 113b or 114a and 115b or permission of instructor.
G&G 205 01 (21125)
Natural Resources and Their Sustainability
Brian Skinner
TTh 1.00-2.15
The formation and distribution of renewable and nonrenewable energy, mineral, and water resources. Topics include the consequences of extraction and use; depletion and the availability of substitutes; and economic and geopolitical issues.
Recommended preparation: introductory chemistry and geology.
STCY 176 01 (20787)
Introduction to the Study of the City
Alexander Garvin
T 6.45-9.15p
An examination of forces shaping American cities and strategies for dealing with them. Topics include housing, commercial development, parks, zoning, urban renewal, landmark preservation, new towns, and suburbs. The course includes games, simulated problems, fieldwork, lectures, and discussion.
WGSS 253 01 (21279)
Women's Health: Global Issues
Naomi Rogers
Janet Henrich
MW 9.25-10.15
1 HTBA
Review of medical findings on gender-specific diseases (e.g., breast cancer, eating disorders); examination of the cultural context of studies on women’s health. Issues include reproduction; weight, body image, and eating; and the impact of violence against women.
Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series
The Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale is an experimental, interdisciplinary effort to reshape how a new generation of scholars understands rural life and society. The core of the Agrarian Studies Program's activities is a weekly colloquium organized around an annual theme. Invited specialists send papers in advance that are the focus of an organized discussion by the faculty and graduate students associated with the colloquium. This year's theme is "Hinterlands, Frontiers, Cities, and States: Transactions and Identities." For a schedule of this spring's speakers, go to http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/real/colloq2.html#Spring.
