Food Studies (FOOD) Courses
FOOD5001 Introduction to Food Safety Systems
This course provides the students with the voluntary and regulatory frameworks that exist to support a safe domestic food supply. Students explore food safety systems that address the biological, chemical and physical hazards as they relate to various aspects of the food industry. In this course students are presented with an overview of food safety systems and practical approaches at the retail level. Students dissect the complex challenges in today’s food supply chain. Students are introduced to a variety of quality assurance programs as well as discuss global food safety initiatives.
Offered at Online, Providence
3 Semester Credits
FOOD5030 Shaping the Future of Food
This project-based course provides students with the opportunity to explore the local food system from the unique perspective of a chef. Students meet local food producers, sample products, and investigate systemic issues related to the long-term viability of local food systems. Students analyze the impact chefs have within the food web and begin to research approaches to creating local, sustainable and more regenerative food systems.
Offered at Providence
3 Semester Credits
FOOD5150 Law, Economics and the American Food System
In this course, students explore the American food system through the lens of (a) microeconomic theory; (b) the U.S. legal system; (c) policy and politics; and (d) history. In couching food system “wicked” problems as market failures, students complete an extensive research project that culminates in the development and presentation of a private market or public policy solution to the negative human health, ecological, economic and/or outcomes of agricultural/food market failures, including externalities, public goods deficiencies and abuse of market power. This course serves as a primer for additional study of the interaction of law and economics in determining the nature and performance of food systems and society more generally.
Offered at Providence
3 Semester Credits
FOOD5200 Eating Identities: Food, Culture and Social Justice
This course offers a critical, anthropologically informed exploration of the cultural, social, economic and historical forces that shape food systems. Students investigate how practices of production, preparation and consumption are embedded in relations of power, identity and meaning, with particular attention to foodways and foodscapes as analytic frameworks. Drawing on ethnographic, historical and interdisciplinary perspectives, the course examines how colonization, globalization and advocacy movements influence food choices and justice struggles across diverse communities. Through advanced research, critical reflection and food-making as inquiry, students create projects that illuminate the intersections of culture, sustainability and social transformation.
Offered at Providence
3 Semester Credits
FOOD6030 Action Research in Sustainable Food Systems
This action research-based course provides students the opportunity to investigate a systemic food system issue encompassing social, political, industrial or environmental constructs within their professional practice or area of choice. Students employ a critical lens to research and evaluate wicked problems in order to test and determine viable solutions to systemic challenges. This course builds an epistemological framework of inquiry, understanding of multiple perspectives, critical adaptive thinking, and responsible action.
Prerequisite(s): FOOD5030, IDES5030.
Offered at Providence
3 Semester Credits