Faculty First Year Seminars 191FYS2 - The Literature of Food

Food suffuses everything we do. It nourishes, propels, inspires, comforts, vexes, and sometimes even destroys us. Naturally, people have been writing about food for as long as they have been writing. In this class, we will critically analyze a broad scope of writing on food, from Ancient Rome to contemporary New York. We will discuss such concepts as community, identity, nostalgia, ethics, commerce, nutrition, foraging, and more. We will read about cherished family rituals, unlikely food origins, marginalized immigrant narratives, trashy restaurants, and the pre-game eating habits of NBA players. Most importantly, we will analyze the beauty, clarity, ethics, and truth present in the assigned readings, in the hope that the lessons learned will redound to our advantage in our own writing. We will also discuss and practice valuable learning strategies that will help you throughout your time here at UMass Amherst. At the end of the semester, you will write a short creative nonfiction piece on a culinary topic of your choosing.

First-year (R1ST)