What can students expect from a GIC course?

This is our first GIC course, so we're not entirely sure what to expect ourselves! That said, we envision medium sized classes with class sessions about specific thematic topics that we will discuss from a variety of angles, with each professor and student contributing to the class by drawing on their own experiences and background. Students do not need to be fluent in English, as long as they are interested in the topics and are motivated to learn not only from us but also from their classmates. The course is designed to provide them with a safe environment where they can engage in discussion without worrying about making mistakes, and students should be willing to help protecting the environment.

Why food? How did you become interested in this topic?

Food is well-suited to an interdisciplinary course like this because it's connected to every dimension of human life: health, economy, politics, culture, identity, environmental relations, and more. The field of Food Studies has grown so much over the past decades and includes scholars from Agricultural Studies, Nutrition, Anthropology, History, Philosophy, Literature, and other disciplines. Another good thing about food is of course its proximity to us, as everyone has something to say about it from our own personal experience.

de St. Maurice:
I've been interested in food for a long time, but at first it was mostly eating food! I started to do research about food for my Master's degree in International Relations at Ritsumeikan University, where I looked at resistance to globalization in Kyoto's local agricultural industry. When I went on to do my PhD in Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, I discovered the existence of Food Studies and became active in the Association for the Study of Food and Society (and wrote a dissertation about branding in Kyoto's local food industry in the context of globalization).

Mikami：
I have multiple interests in food, but the experience of studying abroad in particular made me quite cautious about what to eat, when and with whom. When I first discovered the sociological take on it as a tool of communication, that made a lot of sense to me. I then learned about the controversy around genetically modified crops. Since then I have been fascinated about the question of what roles science and technology have in creating and recreating our food culture.

What different interdisciplinary approaches do you bring to your topic? What do you hope students will gain from these different approaches?

We've structured the course around key themes (e.g. what is good food?) and subthemes (e.g. "superfoods," breeding technology). We look at these themes through transdisciplinary lenses that draw on insight from fields like Science and Technology Studies and Food Studies. We also encourage students to pay attention to everyday practices and non-academic discourses related to food. Food is an example of how we can turn aspects of our daily lives into topics of academic inquiry. We hope students will recognize the vast range of possibilities for studying something embedded in our lives in so many ways , and also to understand what it takes to go beyond just liking something to studying it academically.

What expectations do you have for students who will take your course

We expect students to actively engage with the course content and participate in class activities and discussions. We aren't looking for students who are fluent in English or who already have a grasp of the subject matter. Rather, we hope to have students who are curious and also eager to talk about course themes with us and with their classmates. We expect students to be receptive to different opinions and experiences and willing to discuss similarities and differences constructively.

*Affiliations and job titles are current at the time of the interview.