Suggested Reading?

[Jan Begine]

If you have any books or articles you would like to share, please post your suggestions here.

I'll start things up by suggesting taking a look at the syllabi set the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS) and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS) have put together. It's over 600 pages! You can download it here.

[Francine Barone]

I don't think this has been mentioned yet: The Anthropology of Food webjournal.

"Anthropology of food is an open source, bilingual electronic review in French and English devoted to the social sciences of phenomena relating to comestibles. It draws on a network of European researchers eager to develop new perspectives on the research and analysis in the social sciences of food. The journal publishes the diverse and complementary research of sociologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and economists."

Fran

[Jan Begine]

I've already added Stull's book to my 'have to read this next' bookpile.

Looking forward to hear more about his class!

I read about Wrangham's book in the NYT, but I haven't read it yet. Exams first...

[Cosimo Lupo]

Thanks for sharing this useful "Syllabi" from the ASFS! I'll retweet to my fellows anthros!

Cosimo

[Liliana Gil Sousa]

Food, Morals, and Meaning: the pleasure and anxiety of eating, John...
(Conveney is a sociologist, I believe. Very foucauldian about food in history and societies. I liked it.)

Liliana

[Jan Begine]

Here's a webpage I tagged a couple of days ago, but I only got around to reading it now:

FOOD AND CULTURE Bibliography from the University of Texas.

And here's the course description and the syllabus:

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD

They've even put a sample midterm exam and a sample final exam online.

[Jan Begine]

Let's post 'Suggested Viewing' tips here as well:

End Of The Line


A film about the effects of the fishing industry on the oceans and seas. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm hoping a local cinema here will pick it up soon!

[Anayensy Herrera]

Jan, Thanks so much for the documental. Sometimes I think never eat fish or other seafoods but in my country many people living to fishing, and they don´t know do other jobs. Excuse for my english

Jan Begine said:

Let's post 'Suggested Viewing' tips here as well:

End Of The Line


A film about the effects of the fishing industry on the oceans and seas. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm hoping a local cinema here will pick it up soon!

[Jan Begine]

Anayensy Herrera said:

Jan, Thanks so much for the documental. Sometimes I think never eat fish or other seafoods but in my country many people living to fishing, and they don´t know do other jobs. Excuse for my english

Never mind spelling and grammar, Anayensy, English isn't my first language either (and strictly speaking it's not even my second language). As long as we understand each other!

As for your comment, I think the film's main concern is industrial fishing, not fishing per se. I'm not familiar with the Costa Rican economy (well, I know it produces damn fine coffee and that the country is a ecotourist hotspot), is fishing an export industry in Costa Rica, or do they just supply the local market?

[Martha Radice]

The classic anthropological work on a 'commodity that changed the world':
Mintz, Sidney Wilfred (1985) Sweetness and Power: The place of sugar in modern history. London: Penguin.

I very much like Margaret Visser's style and scholarship. I'm not sure whether she would call herself an anthropologist, but this is a fascinating study of... well, of what the title says.
Visser, Margaret (2000) The Rituals of Dinner. Toronto: HarperPerennial Canada.

And there's a great deal of interesting work on food by British cultural geographers lately, e.g.
Cook, Ian and Michelle Harrison (2003) 'Cross over food: re-materializing postcolonial geographies.' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 28(3): 296-317.
Jackson, Peter , Neil Ward and Polly Russell (2009) 'Moral economies of food and geographies of responsibility.' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34(1): 12-24.

[Isabel Cardana]

At Terrain's website you can see a filter for all articles by theme. Here's the link: http://terrain.revues.org/index10051.html#
First one is "alimentation" - you have plenty to read (or not to read) there!
Bye!

[Rose Wellman]

This is a great source. Thanks for sharing! I've already used two articles from it. Just a note of appreciation.


Francine Barone said:

I don't think this has been mentioned yet: The Anthropology of Food webjournal.
"Anthropology of food is an open source, bilingual electronic review in French and English devoted to the social sciences of phenomena relating to comestibles. It draws on a network of European researchers eager to develop new perspectives on the research and analysis in the social sciences of food. The journal publishes the diverse and complementary research of sociologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and economists."
Fran

[Deborah Gewertz]

Dear Colleagues, Another list to which I subscribe has an informal category called "shameless self-promotion" which allows list members to advertise their own accomplishments. I hope you do not mind if I invoke this category here and announce that a long-term project of mine and my collaborator's has seen the light of day.

Cheap Meat: Flap Food Nations in the Pacific Islands is just out under U. California Press' series concerning "Global anthropology/food and culture/global health." I've attached the cover: vegetarians have fair warning!

Here's the major blurb:

Cheap Meat follows the controversial trade in inexpensive cuts of lamb or mutton, called “flaps,” from the farms of New Zealand and Australia to their primary markets in the Pacific Islands in Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Fiji. In this engrossing story, Deborah Gewertz and Frederick Errington address the evolution of the meat trade itself along with the changing practices of exchange in the region.

And here's a blurb from Robert Foster:

"Gewertz and Errington unpack the aspirations and anxieties, calculations and controversies that inhabit an inexpensive cut of fatty meat. Following the trail of sheep bellies from slaughterhouses in Australia and New Zealand to the plates of Pacific Islanders, they evenhandedly map the divergent perspectives of commercial traders, government officials, and ordinary consumers acting within a contested material and moral economy. Cheap Meat provides a startling view of how global food markets fashion the bodies and identities of people everywhere."


These are the chp. headings:

Intro.) What's Not on Our Plates

1) Thinking About Meat

2) Making Flaps

3) Trading Meat

4) Papua New Guinea's Flaps

5) Smiles and Shrugs, Worried Eyes and Sighs

6) Pacific Island Flaps

Conc.) One Supersize Does Not Fit All: Flap versus Mac


Thanks for putting up with such self-promotion.

d.






Dr. Deborah Gewertz
G. Henry Whitcomb Professor
of Anthropology
Amherst College
Amherst, MA 01002
U.S.A.
phone: [phone]
fax: [phone]