Essay Exam for an Anthropology course about food, taste and desire.
Part A: Answer BOTH essay questions (40 points each, 2 pages max each). Answer all parts of the question and substantiate your claims.
1. What is the future of food? What visions of food futures does Wurgaft discuss in Meat Planet (discuss at least 3)? What would be yours? Include an ad which will capture your major ideas. If you already created an ad for our discussion, use it here. Draw on different ideas in Wurgafts book as well as our discussions online.
2. Michael Twitty and Melissa Caldwell engage political questions through their approaches to food consumption. For example, Michael Twitty talks about culinary history which is interconnected with slavery, racism and injustice, while Caldwell claims that living organically is a way to resist and reproduce state ideologies, it is also a form of Russian nationalism. Drawing examples from both books, discuss their approaches to food and power (how state, racism, slavery, nationalism, etc. shape food consumption and influence broader historical culinary or food consumption trends and how people resist power regimes through their food consumption), say your opinion.
Part B: Define/say significance of 5 concepts. In addition, choose one quote from the chapter/article/reading to illustrate your arguments or present one of the major ideas in this reading (4 points each, 5-7 sentences plus one quote).
1. A gift from the American people (Dunn)
2. Carnism (April 26 class, see the website above)
3. Food and spirituality (Babettes feast) (you do not have to cite the film)
4. Culinary justice (Twitty)
5. Hunting (Tokarczuk)
Readings/films/other exam materials:
1. Wurgaft, B. A. Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food (A book)
2. Twitty, Michael (2017) W. The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South.
3. Caldwell, M. Dacha Idylls: Living Organically in Russias Countryside. Chapters 3 and 4.
4. Elizabeth Dunn: A Gift from the American People
5. Carnism: https://carnism.org
6. FILM: Babettes feast (1987) by Gabriel Axel
7. A chapter from Olga Tokarczuks book on animals
