COURSES OFFERED:

FOOD WRITING WITH FIVE SENSES

A recipe for fettuccine. The history of tea. An adventure to the local market. Where to eat the best sandwich. A raw food cooking guide. During our Food Writing Course, we will narrate the endless stories and memories of food, and investigate biographies, history, cultures and essays. Food writing concerns dozens of subjects; it is the writer and his/her ability that makes the difference.
Writing about cooking is not just writing about food flavors – when you write about food you write with all your senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight. This course aims to teach you how to tell stories and cooking experiences, using technique and imagination – but most of all engaging all your senses.
The course will contribute to the training of future writers, authors, and journalists. This course will have a theoretical part and a practical one, where will write exercises and assignments.

Credit Recommendation: 200-300 level food studies, anthropology, communication, literature or related disciplines.

FOOD SYSTEMS AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF FOOD IN ITALY

This course examines food and nutrition from anthropological and social science perspectives. The course begins with an overview of Italian food and wine emphasizing regional traditions. Students examine the success of Mediterranean diet and explore contemporary patterns in food production, distribution, and consumption. Wine and specific food products, both artisanal and mass-produced, are examined within the context of Italian culture and history. The course presents food in all its complex connections with culture, nutrition, environment, society, economics and politics. Throughout the course, students have the opportunity to experience and understand Italy’s rich and enduring food culture through historical and innovative approaches to environmental and economic sustainability and quality-oriented food production and nutrition. All course topics are accompanied by practical activities, ranging from classes in professional kitchens to food and wine pairing and tasting workshops. Lectures are delivered by prestigious experts for each topic, providing a dynamic and interdisciplinary learning environment. This course is designed for undergraduate students of food studies, environmental studies, geography and global studies, economics and business, nutrition science, and students generally interested in food and sustainability studies.

Credit Recommendation: 200-300 level food studies, anthropology, global studies or related disciplines.

SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY

What is the place of food in urban spaces, especially in diverse cities, like Rome? Scholars across the humanities and interpretive social sciences are beginning to recognize how food is woven into the physical, psychic, and economic fabric of cities. This course examines contemporary sustainable architecture in Italy. The city of tomorrow, the urban environment, the relational context of neighborhoods and districts and their relations with the outside, are issues of great importance today. During the semester, students study what traditional ecologically adapted buildings can tell us about sustainability and contemporary design, as well as learning to build “urban agriculture” and the “new re-urbanite landscapes”. We have worked with our professors to develop a new analytical framework to understand the cultural, economic, and nutritional significance of food in diverse cities in Italy. This course will support students to analyze the multi-faceted foodscape of Rome’s neighborhoods as well as those of other Italian cities.

Credit Recommendation: 200-300 level food studies, architecture, design, urban planning, anthropology or related disciplines.

FOOD DESIGN

‘Food Experience Design’ is a new field that takes into account the users of food, the contexts within which they live, and the foods they consume. The cultural meanings of food as well as the diversity of individuals in the community can never be overlooked. One of the goals of this field is to design (or re-design) food end-user experiences. It attempts to define new paradigms for consumption and buying behavior based on transparency and a sense of reassurance, simplification and transportability, the flexibility of time and the recovery of conviviality. These are all interpretative keys to understanding the contemporary need for roots, regional identities and culture – all of which are essential aspects of human interaction. All of these are complex issues likely to require the development of new computer interfaces and applications. For this reason, the relation between food, human experience and design, on the one hand, and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and HCI (Human Computer Interaction), on the other, are also explored. In particular, this course will focus on products, services and systems for “Open food markets” and “Artisanal shops”.

Credit Recommendation: 200-300 level design, communication, food studies, anthropology or related disciplines.

ITALIAN LANGUAGE COURSES (FROM ELEMENTARY TO ADVANCED LEVEL)
Gustolab Institute Center for Food Studies collaborates with the Scuola Leonardo da Vinci Rome to provide the Italian Language courses. Courses are applicable toward most U.S. Universities’ language requirement. Higher levels of Italian language and Italian Conversation courses are available. Please contact us to receive more information on this. Courses are available at multiple levels depending on prior study or background. Information on an introductory course stressing food related vocabulary — the Lexicon for Food Studies — is available upon request.

Credit Recommendation: 100-400 level Italian Language, Language Studies or related disciplines.

Download this description of the Spring 2016 program here

Please note that the Food Design course and the Sustainable Architecture in Italy course will be offered again in the summer.