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Academics
- Examine French culture through the food it produces, prepares and consumes
- Discover the role that food plays in articulating national and regional identities
- Reflect on your own cultural experiences while trying new foods, discovering bakeries, delis, and regional specialities
Academic Structure
Program Type: The Place of Food: Consuming French Culture is a Global Seminar. Global Seminars are short-term study abroad programs led by University of Minnesota faculty. Instruction is in English.
Level: 3000 level coursework.
Term: May 2010.
Prerequisites: None.
Courseload: One 3-credit course.
Prior to departure, students will attend a pre-departure orientation and receive pre-departure readings and requirements. Students will participate in an orientation, welcome reception, and a walking tour of Montpellier. Monday through Friday instruction will consist of a combination of classroom discussion and group projects as well as field trips to sites of significance. Weekends are typically free for studying and exploring Montpellier and its surroundings. There will be a farewell meal at the end of the program.
Coursework
This course will examine the relationship of food to culture in a place where food is a privileged cultural medium, or national pastime. It is an introduction to French culture in a particular space and through the foods, and discourses on food, that it produces.
Students will study the social contexts in which food is prepared and eaten and discuss the cultural myths and realities embodied in food. Aspects of gender, family, class, and ethnicity will be examined as they relate to food and consumption. Students will also examine French attitudes towards food in relation to their own and will be challenged to think about their own presuppositions about food and American identity.
Students will be engaged in individual mini-excursions with the expectation that they will come to realize that a trip to the grocery store or market is tantamount to a visit to a museum of popular culture. Group excursions will be organized to situate food production and consumption both in a geographical and historical context.
Course readings will draw on a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the theme of the place of food, from cultural anthropology to history, to sociology, to cultural studies and gastronomy as well as to literature and film. Reading texts in context, will give students direct experience with French culture in general and that of the Midi (Southern France) in particular.
For more information, view the tentative syllabus.
This course has been approved for the Arts & Humanites/Other core and International Perspectives theme.
View the Global Seminar Liberal Education Requirements chart.
French Majors/Minors: Students who have taken Fr 3015 can complete their coursework in French to receive credit for Fr 3650 which counts as an elective for the French major/minor.
Faculty Leader
Judith E. Preckshot is an Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian. She has taught numerous courses on francophone literatures, Southern French literature and immigration. She has previously led a study abroad program to Montpellier and looks forward to leading another group of students in 2010. She has traveled widely in France and knows the Montpellier region well.
Last modified on November 19, 2009 |