Class enjoying a visit to Verbena Free Spirited Non Alcoholic Shoppe.
Eating in Public
Objects that seem so familiar and personal: a favorite dish, a cup of coffee–are made strange. This learning community defamiliarizes the deeply familiar through detailing the histories of the things we consume and their implications for globalization and colonialism. At the same time, through a humanistic lens, Eating in Public helps students reflect on and develop a vocabulary for matters of taste and the pleasures associated with food. Students will learn skills that are fundamental to sociology (in depth interviewing, comparative historical analysis, ethnography) and the humanities (close reading, visual analysis, and philosophical reasoning). Taking advantage of the culinary resources in the greater Cleveland area, the course will offer experiential learning to complement the theoretical and intellectual pursuits of the courses. Students will gain essential leadership and collaboration skills through a shared multimedia magazine project.
Thank you to our community partners!
Eating in Public would not be possible without our amazing community partners who allowed us into their spaces.
- Joe Waltzer, Black River Café, Oberlin
- Jessa New, Slow Train and The Local Cafés, Oberlin
- Molly Cheraso, Verbena Free Spirited and Shoppe, Cleveland
- Jesse Mason, Mason’s Creamery, Cleveland
- Alex Budin, Jukebox, Cleveland
- Sean Watterson, Happy Dog, Cleveland
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
A land acknowledgement resonates all the more promptly in a course that explores one’s relationship to the land. We dine and drink and learn and labor on stolen lands. We acknowledge that here in Northeast Ohio we gather on Indigenous land, including traditional territory of the Erie and Haudenosaunee Confederacies. In the Seneca language, Ohi:yo’ is a Good Flowing Stream, and we honor those who have stewarded northeast Ohio’s waters and lands across the generations. This calls us to commit to continuing to learn how to be better stewards of the resources that sustain us as well. Want to learn more? Native Land Digital; Treaty of Fort Industry.
