Dr. Shawn Bender, Dickinson, East Asian Studies
Sustainable Food and Culture of Japan
In the coming years, I am planning to teach new 200-level topics courses related to sustainability and contemporary culture in the Asian region: one on food and culture; the other on the environment and culture. Participating in the Valley and Ridge workshop helped advance my thinking about what a course on food and culture in East Asia might look like. It also helped identify concrete ways to integrate elements of sustainability concepts into the course.
The course on food and culture in Japan that I am developing builds on sustainability principles and resources in several ways. First, the design of the course adopts a holistic approach to thinking about food and culture. Staple foods and traditional dishes will be considered within their full socio-environmental context of production, preparation, and consumption. Such an approach naturally raises topics related to the relationship between food production and food safety, the promotion of sustainable cultivation, gender and class inequalities involved in food production and food preparation, connections between cultural heritage and everyday food rituals, and the preservation of culinary authenticity in the midst of accelerating globalization.
Additionally, the workshop deepened my knowledge about the campus resources available to support the course’s sustainability goals. The course will include a tour of the College Farm to help students better understand the place of small-scale organic farming within the landscape of commercial agri-business. Students will also actualize sustainability principles through a project-based assignment that will have them analyze the environmental impact of a popular dish or create a new one that maintains flavor and taste while minimizing environmental harm.