This course serves as an introduction and foundation for WFUSD’s concentration in Food, Faith, and Religious Leadership. It utilizes an interdisciplinary approach to explore (primarily Christian) theological perspectives on food and how individuals and congregations engage issues in local and global communities related to food. Faculty and other guests will offer perspectives and resources from a variety of theological disciplines, and community members involved in the intersections of food and faith will embody models of action and engagement.
Participants will:
- Understand elements of local/global food systems.
- Explore theological perspectives on food production and consumption.
- Explore traditional theological themes as they relate to issues of food (creation, anthropology, sin/exile/alienation, redemption, incarnation).
- Explore various ways that “eating is a moral act.”
- Explore strategies for enacting mercy, justice, and health/shalom in community.
- Explore how poverty, race, and global economic arrangements interact with food systems.
- Explore issues of hunger and food insecurity.
- Explore how leaders in faith communities can facilitate engagement, reflection, practice, and engagement/ministry around issues of food in their communities.
Texts
Required:
Norman Wirzba, Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011)
Michael Schut (editor), Food and Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread (Earth Ministry, 2006)
Articles, both printed and online, as assigned
Recommended:
Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman (editors), Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability (MIT Press, 2011).
Cathy C. Campbell, Stations of the Banquet: Faith Foundations for Food Justice (Liturgical Press, 2003).
Note: The course site on Sakai lists contains other resources: websites, PDF and other documents, some of which will be required for certain class periods.
Assignments
We will engage the topics and texts through a variety of methods.
Reading Reflections: At regular intervals you will be asked to write a 2-page reflection on assigned readings. Read the rubric for the assignment (in Sakai, assignments section) carefully. The rubric will ask you to demonstrate a textured understanding of the central threads of the author’s argument, and then ask you to critically engage that argument. It is important to demonstrate that you understand a perspective (even if you disagree with it) before you criticize it. When you engage it critically (interrogating it, analyzing it, applying it, arguing with it) it is important that you are specific and clear, not careless and sweeping, either in endorsing or dismissing the argument. Reading reflections are to be submitted through the assignments section of Sakai. There will be penalties for late submissions.
Integrative Reflections: These assignments invite you to observe something in your world related to food and faith. They will invite you to do careful observation, give voice to elements of your own experience, analyze, compare, and put some things together, of only tentatively. They may ask you to take a position, imagine a response, or analyze a relatively local phenomenon. They are intended to invite you to compose a coherent essay. They are not tweets or lists or stream of consciousness writings. Integrative reflections are to be submitted through the assignments section of Sakai. There will be penalties for late submissions.
Reading Quizzes: On a few occasions we will have very brief, multiple choice reading quizzes. These quizzes aim to test your understanding of the main concepts and arguments of assigned readings.
Project: The project is a 12-15 page paper that explores a topic related to food and faith in some depth (and thus, uses scholarly sources, analyzes evidence and arguments, constructs a thesis, and supports it). The paper should relate elements in the “conversation circles” with which we began the class: issues, disciplines, theological themes. Alternate proposals (to the paper described above) could include constructing a curriculum or other resource material for use in a congregation or community group; constructing a background “white paper” for a group considering a program or ministry initiative; doing a critical survey/review of local efforts working in the space where food and faith meet. Alternative proposals will still need to interact with assigned and other scholarly sources. The project (whether an academic paper or an alternative) will need to produce a product and a presentation (to the class). The Project Proposal will describe the paper or other product you plan, with a description of the topic, method, and major sources.
Changes
Your professor may make adjustments in the syllabus and the schedule as the semester unfolds. If changes are made, you will be informed immediately. The syllabus posted on Sakai will be updated if/when changes occur.