UMass Boston

Food & Culture in Japan: National Identity & Diversity, Past & Present

Course #: ASIAN 367L, Class #: 6941, Section #: 01

Description

This course explores how food and its consumption have been practiced and represented in premodern and modern Japan. Students will learn about the place of food in Japanese society, as well as the less commonly known aspects of Japanese food culture. The preparation, presentation, and consumption of food take place within structures of power. Food is often intimately tied to discourses of nationalism and national identity, yet it can also symbolize the diversity of society, such as regional identity, gendered divisions of labor, or the "foreign" and its appropriations. The class will investigate these and other aspects of Japanese food culture through written texts, visual arts, and film, in order to encourage a nuanced, complex, and critical understanding of the place of food in Japan.

Prerequisites

Any 200 level course