MEDITERRANEAN FOODSCAPES: BETWEEN PASTA AND TAPAS

In this course, we explore the connections between food, culture, and society, looking at the role of food in the construction of personal and collective identity in terms of body, race and ethnicity, class, gender, nationality, and social movements. We also examine cultural aspects of food politics, paying particular attention to the Mediterranean (mostly Italy and Spain) but also considering globalization and international flows of people, goods, ideas, and technologies. The course introduces analytical approaches and methods that are widely used in the growing research field of food studies.

At the end of the course students will be able to:
- Examine critically theoretical issues concerning the nature of reality, human experience, knowledge, value, and the cultural production related to the topics addressed.
- Analyze arts and literatures in themselves and in relation to specific histories, values, languages, cultures, and technologies linked to food in the Mediterranean.
- Development of autonomy of judgment in the interpretation of texts and films and ability to rework bibliographic sources.
- Autonomous learning skills that allow to apply the acquired knowledge to the study of texts/films.

Analytical skills to perform critical commentary of literary texts and films.

We will address four different ways in which food speaks to us: a) a filmic approach studying among others Luchino Visconti’s Il gattopardo, Luis Buñuel’s cinema, in films such as Viridiana, Tristana, or Le fantôme de la liberté, or Bigas Luna’s Jamón, jamón; b) table manners as discussed by Giovanni Della Casa's Il Galateo overo de' costumi, or Mariano José de Larra; c) the shortage of food and hunger that was an obsessive and persistent reality during war and post war periods of the twentieth century; d) and the recent sophistication and cosmopolitanism of Italian and Spanish cuisine due to the transformation of those countries by the presence of immigrants.

Readings:

Reading material provided by the instructor.
Elena Kostioukovitch, Why italians love to talk about food: A Journey Through Italy's Great Regional Cuisines, from the Alps to Sicily (excerpts)
Massimo Montanari, Food Is Culture New York; Columbia U.P., 2004
Fabio Parasecoli, Al dente. A history of food in Italy, 2014
Elio Petrini, Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, and Fair, 2014
María José Sevilla, - Delicioso A History of Food in Spain, 2019
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Southern Seas, 1979


Films:

Éric Besnard, Délicieux (2021)
Luis Buñuel, films
Luchino Visconti, The Leopard (1963)
Gabriel Axel, Babette’s Feast (1987)
Stanley Tucci, Big Night (1996)

Barthes, Roland. “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption”
Eagleton, Terry. “Edible ecriture” (1997)
Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. Near a Thousand Tables. A History of Food (2003)
Schlögel, Karl. El siglo soviético: Arqueología de un mundo perdido. Galaxia Gutenberg. 2021
Shahani, Gitanjali G., ED. Food and Literature (2018)
Tigner, Amy L. and Allison Carruth. Literature and Food Studies (2018)

Final exam is a written test in English. It consists of four questions (the student must answer two of their choice) in order to ensure the skills acquired in the analysis of texts and films. Questions include two or more topics discussed in the course.
To pass the course is required:
-active participation in class.
-short critical essay on each one of the texts/films.
-class presentation of one of these texts/films.
-final written exam.

Lectures and discussions in English with the help of films, documentaries, interviews.

English

The file "Calendar" in noodle (available after the first class meeting) provides the daily activities/readings of this course.

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Circular economy, innovation, work" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development