FFS 380 - Special Seminar

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2018/19a: Subnature and Culinary Culture. “Subnature,” a word coined by historian and theorist David Gissen, defines aspects of nature that the architectural discipline has traditionally shunned, such as dankness, darkness, mud, weeds, smoke, puddles, dust, debris, crowds, and pigeons. Subnature encapsulates the “problems” architects have attempted to solve, circumvent and avoid, or have “othered” in preference for such opposing qualities as light, airiness, cleanliness, and flow. Architectural efforts have occasional sought to transform and reappropriate subnatures as positive aesthetic phenomena, designing modernized mud houses, for example, or reclaiming vacant lots and weeded expanses as objects of beauty.

This FFS course expands the architectural notion of subnature through a French and francophone lens, applying that theoretical construct to categories of marginalized foods and cuisines. Why, for example, are foods eaten as delicacies in some societies repugnant to others, and what are the ethical, aesthetic, and health implications of marginalized foods throughout history, across regions, in different cultures? Can such foods be reframed and reapproriated? We examine such “subnatural” foods as filter feeders, pungent cheeses, foraged and gleaned food, offal, chitterlings and other innards, microbes, molds, and mushrooms, taboo textures, and foods marked by the terroir. We apply a transdisciplinary methodology with recourse to French and francophone theory, literary texts, as well as philosophy, cultural studies, and popular culture, in order to understand culinary subnature in terms of theory and practice.

Course readings are provided via Moodle, but there is a $50/student fee used for subnatural food samples, and possible field trip. This fee will be debited at the time of course registration. Thomas Parker.

One 2-hour period.