Courses

Courses offered from across the University that focus on topics of food studies and food systems are gathered as a resource for students and faculty. 

Spring 2023

Food, Culture & Society (CD or SA)
Subject associations
ANT 311
Instructors
Hanna Garth
Ethics of Eating (EM)
Subject associations
CHV 395 / PHI 399 / REL 396
Instructors
Andrew Chignell
Water-Energy-Food Nexus (SEL)
Subject associations
FRS 152
Instructors
Lamyaa El-Gabry
The Literature of Gastronomy (LA)
Subject associations
ITA 319
Instructors
Daniele De Feo
Pietro Frassica
The Land Crisis for Food, Climate and Wildlife (SA)
Subject associations
SPI 405 / ENV 405
Instructors
Timothy D. Searchinger

Fall 2022

Squishy Engineering: Using Soft Materials to Solve Hard Problems (SEN)
Subject associations
CBE 430 / MAE 430 / MSE 430

The milk we drink in the morning (a colloidal dispersion), the gel we put into our hair (a polymer network), and the plaque that we try to scrub off our teeth (a biofilm) are all familiar examples of soft or "squishy" materials. Such materials also hold great promise in helping to solve engineering challenges such as water remediation, therapeutic development/delivery, and the development of new coatings, displays, formulations, foods, and biomaterials. This class covers fundamental aspects of the science of soft materials, presented within the context of these challenges, with guest speakers to describe new applications of soft materials.

Instructors
Sujit S. Datta
Designing Ventures To Change the World
Subject associations
EGR 488 / ENT 488

Princeton's motto: 'In the nation's service and the service of humanity.' Inspiring, but what does it mean for people interested in addressing important global challenges through socially-minded entrepreneurship and innovation? We will explore how for-profit or non-profit social-benefit ventures can do well and do good - helping communities to become self-reliant and prosperous while confronting inequality, global climate change, food insecurity, injustice and other problems. We will examine models for durable social ventures, engage with entrepreneurs, and develop your own solution ideas for the problems and communities you care about.

Instructors
John D. Danner
Resource Recovery for a Circular Economy
Subject associations
ENE 321 / CEE 321 / ENV 371

The course will focus on emerging science and technologies that enable the transition from our traditional linear economy (take, make, waste) to a new circular economy (reduce, reuse, recycle). It will discuss the fundamental theories and applied technologies that are capable of converting traditional waste materials or environmental pollutants such as wastewater, food waste, plastics, e-waste, and CO2, etc. into valued-added products including energy, fuels, chemicals, and food products.

Instructors
Z. Jason Ren
Topics in Environmental Studies: Building American Style: Land-Use Policies and Rules (SA)
Subject associations
ENV 305

Americans have built and preserved an astounding variety of environments. The course examines the evolving complex of incentives and regulations that drove the choices of where and how places developed. It focuses on how land-use and environmental planning encourage or discourage growth and can mitigate or intensify environmental, social, and economic effects. We examine the latest tools for building and protecting the American landscape. Special topics include transportation, food and agriculture, environmental justice, and climate change. Analysis will be from historical, policy-oriented, and predictive perspectives.

Instructors
Deborah Popper
Frank J. Popper
Politics and Environment in France (SA)
Subject associations
FRE 230 / ENV 232

Improve your spoken and written French while studying some urgent topics in French environmental politics, from climate change and energy politics to environmental racism, food safety, animal rights, and degrowth. How is the French case unique? What is a ZAD and "un grand projet inutile"? What happened at Plogoff and Larzac? How do class, race, and gender intersect with the exploitation of nature? What exactly is "ecofascism" anyway? Discussion and creative projects will focus on films, bandes dessinées, literature, art, and essays; the course is writing- and speaking-intensive.

Instructors
Göran Magnus Blix

Spring 2022

Advanced Seminar in American Studies: Art and Politics of Food (CD or LA)
Subject associations
AMS 403 / ENV 403 / VIS 408

This course brings methods and ideas from two fields--American studies and the environmental humanities--to examine the role of the arts in US food movements related to agriculture, culinary experimentation and environmental justice. Course materials will include film, visual and performance art, journalism, political ephemera and culinary artifacts. Course participants will develop both an independent research-based essay and a multimedia collaborative project that build on the seminar's guiding questions and assigned materials.

Instructors
Allison Carruth
Agriculture, Human Diets and the Environment (SEN)
Subject associations
ENV 303 / EEB 303

Food fuels us and our diets connect us with nature at many scales. Yet most of us poorly understand how food is produced and how production processes impact our diets, health, livelihoods and the environment. By the course's end, students will better understand the ethical, environmental, economic, social and medical implications of their food choices. Food production methods ranging from hunting, fishing and gathering to small and large scale crop and animal farming will be examined through lenses of ethics, ecology, evolutionary biology, geography, political economy, social dynamics, physiology, climate change and sustainability.

Instructors
Daniel I. Rubenstein
American Agrarians: Ideas of Land, Labor, and Food (SA)
Subject associations
AMS 419 / ENV 419

For agrarians, farms and fields are prized over boardrooms and shopping malls. Agrarianism values hard work, self-sufficiency, simplicity and connection with nature. For some today, it is a compelling antidote to globalization and consumerism. This course examines American agrarianism past and present and its central role in our national imaginary, tracing the complex and contradictory contours of a social and political philosophy that seeks freedom and yet gave way to enslaving, excluding, and ignoring many based on race, immigration status, and gender. A focus will be on new agrarianism and movements for food, land, and social justice.

Instructors
Tessa L. Desmond
Consuming American: Food, Fiction, and Fact (SA)
Subject associations
FRS 191

This seminar will examine closely five persistent puzzles in the American food system and provide students with an opportunity to brainstorm, discuss, debate, and evaluate possible solutions to issues of food insecurity, food-related disease, farm labor, regulation, and the environment. Through these sets of puzzles and problems students will consider class, race, and gender disparities as well as themes of paternalism and judgement, food as a human right, and concepts of freedom.

Instructors
Tessa L. Desmond
Designing Ventures To Change the World
Subject associations
EGR 488 / ENT 488

Princeton's motto: 'In the nation's service and the service of humanity.' Inspiring, but what does it mean for people interested in addressing important global challenges through socially-minded entrepreneurship and innovation? We will explore how for-profit or non-profit social-benefit ventures can do well and do good - helping communities to become self-reliant and prosperous while confronting inequality, global climate change, food insecurity, injustice and other problems. We will examine models for durable social ventures, engage with entrepreneurs, and develop your own solution ideas for the problems and communities you care about.

Instructors
John D. Danner

Prior Sample Courses

Advanced Seminar in American Studies: Art and Politics of Food
Special Topics in Sustainable, Resilient Cities and Infrastructure Systems
The Ethics of Eating
The Quest for Health: Contemporary Debates on Harm, Medicine, and Ethics
Agriculture, Human Diets and the Environment
The Land Crisis for Food, Climate and Wildlife
Saving Seeds
Consuming American: Food, Fiction, and Fact