Food, Glorious Food - NSC00004M

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Module summary

This module is for Norwegian Study Centre Postgraduate Students only.

Food is both a central area of life and integral for life. It is not just about sustenance, but is also tied to deeply rooted social structures in the form of identity, language, and culture. As a consequence, food provides us with a rich and multifaceted topic area through which we can explore the diversity of social meanings. This module provides an interdisciplinary analysis of food, borrowing from all the areas of study deployed on the wider YorkCourse. This analysis is intended to provide students with:

a) an appreciation of the wide breadth of knowledge possible through critically interrogating seemingly small subject areas;

b) an intellectual flexibility derived from the module’s emphasis on using different disciplinary lenses to explore a single topic.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2026-27
B	Semester 2 2026-27

Module aims

The module is aimed at providing students with a broad base of knowledge of food drawn from the range of disciplines that form the basis of interdisciplinary English cultural studies: linguistics, politics, literature, and history. The module unites these different disciplinary approaches around core themes: production and consumption; ideology and power; interpretation and representation. Individual sessions often focus on particular foods or drinks, such as meat, bread, tea, chocolate, or curry.

The module asks questions such as:

• How have the cultural meanings assigned to particular foods changed over time?

• What does food suggest about language contact as a driver of lexical variation and change?

• How have the political economies of food and drink shaped national, regional, and global histories?

• What major political issues and controversies can be related to food?

• How have writers used the symbolism of foods to enrich storytelling?

• In what ways do literary depictions of food convey the politics of differing social dynamics (gender/class/race/age/etc)?

• How does language variation in terms related to particular foods relate to regional (national varieties of English, local dialects) and/or social variation (gender/ class/race/age/etc)?

• What role does food play in everyday life today (including in York) and how is this reflected in its presentation in both culinary and non-culinary contexts?

Module learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to

• Demonstrate an ability to apply different disciplinary lenses to a topic

• Deliver a compelling academic presentation

• Identify the benefits and difficulties of interdisciplinarity

• Show an ability to research food as a topical area

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Oral presentation/seminar/exam	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Oral presentation/seminar/exam	100.0

Module feedback

The assessment for this module is supported by formative meetings with course tutors to discuss the presentation in the weeks leading to it. Following the presentation, students will receive written feedback within 20 days.

Indicative reading

A week-by-week reading list is provided at the start of the course. The below texts would make for useful introductory background reading:

• Bridget L. Jankowski & Sali A. Tagliamonte, “Supper or Dinner? Linguistic Variation in the Meals of the Day”, English World-Wide, 40:2 (2019), 170-201.
• Marion Nestle, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition & Health (University of California Press, 2013).
• Jeffrey M. Pilcher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Food History (Oxford University Press, 2012).
• Gitanjali G. Shahani (ed.), Food and Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2018).