Course Syllabus

Course SyllabusCourse Syllabus:  Food and Culture in East Asia

Course Instructor Information

Instructor: Cui Zhou

Email: cui.zhou@emory.edu

Meeting Time: M 2:30pm-5:15pm

Place: Woodruff Library 773

Office Hours: Wed. 12:00-2:00 pm, Modern Languages 119

Course Description

Food is the necessary material for everyone’s daily life. You may have the experience of discussing your favorite food or restaurant with friends or family members. But food is not just about food but the lens to scrutinize culture. In this course, we will place food under analytic scrutiny, interrogate the different ways of imagining, understanding, and defining Asian foods, and explore how human relationships to food in East Asia have changed over time. This course will guide you to know how food interacts with family systems, politics, gender issues, consumerism, classes, minorities, regionalism, and globalization by analyzing cultural products, such as film, literature, and new media materials, with food as the subject matter. This course meets the continuing writing requirement.

Course Objectives

After taking this course, students should be able to…

1. Understand the interaction between food and culture
2. Know the major themes relating to food
3. Utilize critical theoretical and methodological approaches to study food and relevant topics
4. Successfully navigate the academic research process, including defining a research topic, writing academically, and completing a peer review.
5. Analyze cultural materials, including literature, films, and new media materials.
6. Improve writing and presentation skills

Course Expectations

This course is formatted as seminars to develop and improve students’ critical thinking ability. Each week, students are expected to watch a film or some short vlogs and an academic article closely relating to the visual materials or the theme of the week. To make sure our course will move smoothly, closely reading the assigned literary and visual materials are important. Reading academic papers is an effective way to improve writing skills. This course intends to teach students the methodology to observe, discuss, and analyze food in a serious way. All the listed topics can be used to discuss different texts. We also welcome outside materials. Students are encouraged to bring other cases relating to the topics we will cover (your observations in daily life or relevant cultural materials) to class discussions and share their reflections. This is a writing-intensive course. Based on the university requirement, this course expects each student to finish a minimum of 20 pages of graded writing. Be prepared for the regular writings.

Course Resources/Materials and Activities

Most of the course materials will be uploaded on Canvas. Links to assigned films will be available on Canvas, too.  Assigned materials may be changed, but you will be informed in advance

Course Requirements

Participation: Students are expected to engage during seminars actively, ask/answer questions, pay attention to what their peers have to say in class, and provide responses. Students can bring the cases relating to minorities in daily life to class discussions and share their reflections. The in-class discussion is crucial for students to communicate with each other. It is OK to make mistakes or have different ideas. But please respect your peers and be supportive. We will hold some mini-writing workshops in class to help students know how to improve their writing skills. Students are expected to join these workshops actively. If you have questions about writing, feel free to bring them to the class.

 

Weekly Posts: Students will post a thoughtful question or two about the current week’s content. Please note learning how to ask questions is the fundamental step to identifying a research topic. We hope to use the weekly posts to help students train this ability. You can also post questions that you want to discuss in the class. The post will be due by 5:00 pm each Sunday.

 

Reading Responses: In this seminar, students should submit Three 3-4-page formal reading responses to the assigned materials (must include an article). In the reading responses, students are expected to practice how to conduct a conversation with previous scholarship in academic writing. To achieve this goal, in the reading response, you need to:

 

1) summarize the key ideas of the week’s materials;

2) show your opinion/reflection/criticism toward these key ideas (i.g., do you agree with the scholars? Why? Are there any blind spots?);

3) use the materials (primary sources or other articles) to support your interpretations;

 

Students have the chance to choose the weeks to finish the reading responses. But each student must finish THREE this semester. Please schedule your time and make sure you can finish all three writing assignments in time. The reading response should be double-spaced with 12-point font Times New Roman. If you choose a week, you should submit the reading responses by the end of the week (Sunday at 11:59 pm). Please note: Canvas will not remind you of the deadlines. Your reading responses will be graded based on the pervasiveness of analysis and the clarity of writing.

 

Presentation: Each student should sign up for a week to deliver a presentation. See requirements below:

 

1) The presentation should be about 15-20 mins centering on the assigned readings and screenings. 2) Both the reading and the film should be covered. The presenter also can choose some cultural materials from other countries and regions relating to the theme we will cover in the week to enrich the content and guide students in discussion.

3) Three to four discussion questions should be raised at the end of the presentation. Presenters have the responsibility to guide the in-class discussion. (Student discussion is not included in the 15-20-min presentation.) The questions should be able to be discussed. Please avoid yes-no questions.

4) To make the in-class discussion smooth, the presenter should post discussion questions on Canvas before Saturday (the week you will deliver the presentation) at 5:00 pm.

 

All the students are expected to prepare for the discussion questions before they come to the class. Please submit the finalized slides to the instructor by 9:00 pm on Sunday.

 

Scaffolding Research Paper: Students will submit a 10- to 12-page research paper, which will involve the close reading of a case regarding food and culture discussed in class. The topic will be based on students’ specific interests. This paper should be double-spaced with 12-point font Times New Roman. You can choose Chicago or MLA styles for citation.

 

--Week 8: Project Topic 5%

students need to schedule a time with the instructor to discuss the feasibility of the proposed projects. Graded N/P

 

--Week 10: 250-word Proposal 5%

In this proposal, you should identify your topic, your tentative thesis argument, and potential references (academic articles and/or books). Graded N/P.

 

--Week 14: First Draft 10%

In weeks 10-13, students should meet with the instructor at least once to report on their reflections and questions in research and writing and submit the first draft by the end of week 14. Graded N/P

 

--Week 15: Peer Review 5%

Students will be separated into reviewing groups. Each group will review two drafts. You need to read the drafts, post your feedback, and fill up the review sheet by the end of week 15. Graded N/P

 

--Week 16: Final Paper 30%

Each student should submit the revised final paper during finals week. For more tips on academic writing, students are encouraged to read Helen Sward’s Stylish Academic Writing and William Strunk and E. B. White’s The Elements of Style. You may also need to visit the writing center to ask for help in academic writing and polish your language. The FINAL research paper will be graded on the originality of thoughts, strong arguments, the pervasiveness of analysis, and the clarity of writing.

 

Extra Credit: up to 3%

You may earn extra credits by working on one of the two assignments: you can 1) make a family recipe 2) make a short video or a Vlog of cookings, food tour, or visualize a theme of our assigned materials. The assignment can help you add up to 3 points to your final grade. If you are interested in gaining extra credits, you need to submit it by the end of week 15.

 

 

Grading Breakdown

Participation 15%

Weekly Posts 5%

Reading Response 5%*3=15%

Presentation 10%

Reach Paper (55%):  Project Topic 5%

                                  Proposal 5%

                                  First Draft 10%

                                  Peer Review 5%

                                  Final Paper 30%

Extra Credits: up to 3%

Accessibility and Accommodations

every student to succeed. The Department of Accessibility Services (DAS) works with students who have disabilities to provide reasonable accommodations. It is your responsibility to request accommodations. In order to receive consideration for reasonable accommodations, you must register with the DAS. Accommodations cannot be retroactively applied so you need to contact DAS as early as possible and contact me as early as possible in the semester to discuss the plan for implementation of your accommodations.

 

For additional information about accessibility and accommodations, please contact the Department of Accessibility Services at (404) 727-9877 or accessibility@emory.edu.

 

 

Schedule of Lessons and Readings

 

Week 2 08/29 Introduction

 

Week 3 09/05 NO CLASS

 

Week 4 09/12 Family Culture

Screening: Eat Drink Man Woman (dir. Ang Lee, 1994)

 

Reading: Tarja Laine, “Family Matters in Eat Drink Man Woman: Food Envy, Family Longing, or Intercultural Knowledge through the Senses?” in Patricia Pisters and Wim Staat ed, Shooting the Family: Transnational Media and Intercultural Values,103-114

 

Week 5 09/19 Consumerism and Desire

Screening: Tampopo (dir. Itami Juzo, 1986)

 

Reading: Timothy Iles, “Tampopo: Food and the Postmodern in the Work of Itami Jûzô,” in Japanstudien, 12:1, 283-297.

 

Week 6 09/26 Politicizing the Food

Screening: Hibiscus Town (dir. Xie Jin, 1986)

 

Reading: Judith Farquhar, “A Feast for the Mind,” in 79-105

 

Week 7 10/03 Pica? Cannibalism I

Reading: Lu Xun “Medicine”

               Gang Yue, “Lu Xun and Cannibalism” in The Mouth that Begs: Hunger, Cannibalism, and the Politics of Eating in Modern China, 67-100.

 

Week 8 NO CLASS

 

** Project Topic Due (Week 8 During Office Hours) **

 

Week 9 10/17 Pica? Cannibalism II

Screening: Three... Extremes: Dumplings (dir. Fruit Chan, 2004)

 

Reading: Andrea Bachner, “From China to Hong Kong with Horror Transcultural Consumption in Fruit Chan’s Dumplings,” Interventions, 20:8, 1137-1152.

 

Week 10 10/24 Gender I: Women and Patriarchy

Screening: 301/302 (dir. Park Ch’ul-su, 1995)

 

Reading: Joan Kee, “Claiming Sites of Independence: Articulating Hysteria in Pak Ch'ul-su's 301/302,” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 9, No. 2(2001): 449-466

 

** 250-word Proposal Due (Fri. Oct 28, 9:00 pm) **

 

Week 11 10/31 Gender II: Documenting Chefs and Masculinity

Screening: Jiro Dreams of Sushi (dir. David Gelb, 2011)

 

Reading: Fabio Parasecoli, “Starred cosmopolitanism: Celebrity chefs, documentaries, and the circulation of global desire,” Semiotica 2016: 315–339

 

Week 12 11/7 The Food of the Subaltern: Ethnic Minorities and Tourism

Screening: vlogs of food tourism in ethnic minority regions

 

Reading: Xu Wu, “The Farmhouse Joy (nongjiale) Movement in China's Ethnic Minority Villages,” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology (2014), 158-177.

 

 

Week 13 11/14 Eating as Shows

Screening: watch some Mukbang shows online

 

Reading: Yeran Kim, “Eating as a Transgression: Multisentorial Performativity in the Carnal Videos of Mukbang (Eating Shows),” International Journal of Cultural Studies 24 No. 1(2021), 107-121.

Antonella Bruno and Somin Chung, “Mŏkpang: Pay Me and I’ll Show You How Much I Can Eat for Your Pleasure,” J​ournal of Japanese and Korean Cinema (2017): 155-171

 

Week 14 11/21 Food and Rural Life

Screening: watch some Li Ziqi’s short videos on Youtube, here are some examples.

 

Han Li, “From Disenchantment to Reenchantment: Rural Microcelebrities, Short Video, and the Spectacle-ization of the Rural Lifescape on Chinese Social Media,” International Journal of Communication (Online), 2022.

 

** First Draft Due (Fri. Nov. 25, 9:00 pm) **

 

Week 15 11/28 Transnational Perspective: Consuming Food from Another Country

George Solt, “Street Life: Chinese Noodles for Japanese Workers.” The Untold History of Ramen: How Political Crisis in Japan Spawned a Global Food Craze. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. 15-42.

 

** Peer Review Due (Fri. Dec. 2, 9:00 pm) **

 

** Extra Credit Project Due (Sun. Dec. 4, 11:59 pm) **

 

Week 16 12/5 Western Food in the East: McDonald's

Yunxiang Yan, “Of Hamburger and Social Space: Consuming McDonald’s in Beijing,” in Food and Culture: A Reader, edited by Carole Counihan and PennyVan Esterik (New York: Routledge, 2008), 449-471.

 

Sangmee Bak, “McDonald’s in Seoul: Food Choices, Identity, and Nationalism,” in Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 136-60.

 

 

** Final Paper Due (Mon. Dec. 12, 11:59 pm) **

 

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