Image: International Food Information Council, “Newsbite: Why Are Americans Still Avoiding MSG?” 2018

*NEW* MSG: Toxic or Delicious? (Fall 2019, New School)

I just found out MSG fear is “fake news.” Or did I? In a brand new course for The New School’s Food Studies program, students will dive into taste science, global food culture, and media theory to investigate how health facts get made in a “post-truth” America.

Image: Shutterstock / Joshua Resnick (via Rachel Thompson for Mashable, July 11, 2017)

Food & the Senses (New School, 2019)

An interdisciplinary exploration of the senses & sensibilities behind contemporary American food culture. Offered online as part of the New School’s Food Studies (BA/BS) Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students. In dialogue with food writers, filmmakers, and digital food culture writ large, students gain critical vocabulary for reflecting on how the senses give meaning to food.

Art: Amisha Gadani

Umami Digest Research Lab (UCLA 2016 – 18)

Umami Digest – denaturing food, science, and culture, an Undergraduate Research Lab and blog exploring the history and science of umami taste perception.

Food. Power. Money. Science (UCLA 2016 – 18)

A critical history of ideas about how to make healthy bodies and minds through food – a special offering through the Human Biology and Society major. How are foods nationalized, classed, raced, and gendered? How do foods come to be deemed healthful? Dangerous? Disgusting? Delicious? Are we really what we eat? Follow how scientists, companies, and citizens produce connections between what we eat, what we feel, and what we can do.

Gender, Race, and Science (University of Toronto, 2015 – 2016)

How have scientists, doctors, naturalists, and other experts interpreted the truth of human difference? How did ‘race’ and ‘sex’ come to be the primary categories for articulating sameness and difference? This class surveys influential critiques of racial and sexual science and emphasizes the historic work of people of color, women, and trans-people in establishing a scientific basis for equity.