Module ANTM021 for 2017/8
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Postgraduate Module Descriptor
ANTM021: Food, Body and Society
This module descriptor refers to the 2017/8 academic year.
Module Aims
You will read works on food, the body and society produced within a range of disciplines, including nutrition, medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, religious studies, literary studies, and philosophy. Through engagement with the literature, you will gain historical and comparative insights, and develop critical perspectives on the relationship between food and bodies--from the individual to the social. The module will prepare you for their own research in the field of study, whether academic or within the context of public institutions, industries, or third sector organisations with an interest in food and foodways, consumption, and diets.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
---|---|
Module-Specific Skills | 1. Understand comparatively the range of ways in which individuals use food to sustain, shape, and give meaning to their bodies 2. Understand comparatively the range of ways in which social groups use food to constitute and reproduce communities |
Discipline-Specific Skills | 3. Adeptly compare and contrast the relationship between food, the body and society over time and across social and cultural contexts 4. Critically assess the social dynamics through which food is used in the construction of individual and social bodies |
Personal and Key Skills | 5. Independently identify and analyze sources pertaining to the relationship between food, the body and society in various specific contexts 6. Present relevant information in support of coherent and persuasive arguments pertaining to the relationship between food, the body and society in various specific contexts |
Module Content
Syllabus Plan
The module will be structured as a reading and discussion seminar. The following themes will likely be covered, with minor variation from year to year depending upon the availability and current research of lecturers contributing to the module:
- The human experience of food, from necessity to pleasure
- Food, eating and the making of individual bodies
- Food and/as medicine
- Food prohibitions and avoidances
- Food, choice and social class
- Commensality
- Cuisine
- Food, migration and diaspora
- Food and knowledge, from experience to memory
- Food and the Earth in the Anthropocene
Learning and Teaching
This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
---|---|---|
22 | 128 | 0 |
...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:
Category | Hours of study time | Description |
---|---|---|
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 22 | 11 x 2-hour weekly seminar |
Guided Independent Study | 50 | 10 x 5-hours weekly reading for seminar preparation |
Guided Independent Study | 20 | 10 x 2-hours weekly preparation of reading response papers |
Guided independent study | 58 | Research and writing of term essay |
Online Resources
This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).
How this Module is Assessed
In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.
Formative Assessment
A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.
Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
---|---|---|---|
Weekly reading response papers | 10 x 250 word weekly reading response papers, prepared before seminar and used to guide participation | 1-6 | Oral feedback in seminar, as well as during office hours upon request |
Summative Assessment
A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.
Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
---|---|---|
100 | 0 | 0 |
...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.
Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
---|---|---|---|---|
Portfolio of weekly reading response papers | 50 | 2,500 words | 1-6 | Weekly papers, revised in light of discussion and submitted at end of term; aggregate mark and written feedback on papers and contributions to seminar given at end of term |
Essay | 50 | 2,500 words on a relevant topic of students choice approved by convener | 1-6 | Mark with written feedback |
Re-assessment
Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.
Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
---|---|---|---|
Portfolio of weekly reading response papers | Portfolio of weekly reading response papers (2,500 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
Essay | Essay (2,500 words) | 1-6 | August/September reassessment period |
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Basic reading:
Appadurai, Arjun (1988) “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1): 3-24.
Douglas, Mary (1991 [1966]) ‘The abominations of Leviticus’, in Purity and Danger (London: Routledge), pp. 42-58.
Fischler, Claude (2011) ‘Commensality, society and culture’, Social Science Information, 50 (3-4): 528-48.
Gill, Christopher, Tim Whitmarsh and John Wilkins, eds. (2009) Galen and the World of Knowledge (Cambridge).
Korsmeyer, Carolyn and David Sutton (2011) ‘The sensory experience of food’, in Food, Culture and Society, 14 (4): 461-75.
Lang, Tim and Michael Heasman (2004) Food Wars: The Global Battle for Mouths, Minds, and Markets (Earthscan).
Mintz, Sidney W. (2008) ‘Food and diaspora’, Food, Culture and Society 11 (4): 509-23.
Rozin, Paul (1999) “Food is fundamental, fun, frightening, and far-reaching,” Social Research 66 (1): 9-30.
Sobo, Elisa (1997 [1994]) ‘The sweetness of fat: health, procreation, and sociability in Rural Jamaica’, in Nicole Landry Sault, Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 132-154.
Warde, Alan (1997) Consumption, Food and Taste: Culinary Antinomies and Commodity Culture. London: Sage.