Reading and Writing Food from Homer to Julia Child

Subject associations
COM 211
Term
Fall 2017
Instructors
Leonard Barkan
Registrar description
This course explores a crucial aspect of Comparative Culture: the literature surrounding food, ranging from Homer to Julia Child. We will begin with a brief history of eating and drinking, mostly as they appear in literary texts from antiquity and early modernity. Topics will include Adam and Eve's apple, the Last Supper, and Proust's Madeleine. We will then proceed to food writing from modern times, focusing on taste, on the lure of particular foods, and on the social circumstances of dining. Particular emphasis on the reading and writing of culinary autobiography.