TracyFood

Fall semester school stuff. 9 September 2009 2:04 pm

Posted by Tracy in : books,hungry planet,Marion Nestle,politics,reading,school , trackback

My Food Policy class meets for the first time tonight, and I am super-excited about it. Any class that has Food Politics, Safe Food, and Hungry Planet as required readings just canNOT be all bad.

Already in my book collection.

Also on the class reading list: Sweet Charity and Closing the Food Gap with optional Appetite for Profit and Stuffed and Starved.

Geek out about a big pile of books I’ve been meaning to check out anyway? Don’t mind if I do!

I’m especially excited about Stuffed and Starved after reading Mikhaela’s take on it — I love the phrase “the honey trap of ethical consumerism.” I know, I know, how can I say that after posting a bunch of links to Amazon instead of a friendly local independent bookstore? Um, pretty easily it turns out. But! I seem to recall seeing a bunch of these fine titles at Bluestockings, and I may not be able to resist their radical, free-trading ways, so there. While I’m on the subject, I have a few paragraphs to spill about shopping around my graduate program for my other class this term.

Right now I’m enrolled in Marion Nestle’s Advanced Topics in Food Studies: Food Sociology, which would have me bouncing in my seat except that the first syllabus I saw for this class was SO MUCH AWESOMER than the latest version, which is more generalized and less specifically focused on food activism. Dangit! So I’m thinking of trying to trade it out. Yesterday I party-crashed Food Systems 1: Agriculture, since it’s a core class and all, and now that I’ve been around the program for a year maybe it’s time to start knocking down some requirements, right? Problem is, it looks a lot like the sustainable agriculture class I took at the University of Oregon — like easily a 60 to 75 percent overlap with stuff I’ve already done.

To make matters worse, there’s a slim chance I might waitlist my way into Contemporary Issues in Food Studies, another required class that looks way cooler than Agriculture (thanks for sharing the syllabus, Ansley!) The other required class happening this term is Food and Culture, but it’s straight-up full, and again I’m a little worried how much it’ll be a rerun of Professor Moreno’s food and culture class at the U. of O.

All whining and indecision aside, however, I’m happy the new school year is starting up. After a long, weird summer, it’s good to be getting back into my happy place with my fellow food nerds.