SOC 216 : Food, Famine, and Farming in the Global Village
This course analyzes the social-structural forces that shape the global food system with particular focus on societal problems emanating from the fossil-fuel-based, industrial agricultural model that now dominates world-wide food production, distribution, and consumption. Areas covered include a historical overview of subsistence strategies, the Green Revolution, threats to food security and water access, first-world obesity and third-world famine, the impact on food systems due to climate change and fossil fuel depletion, population swells, food-based social movements, and alternative food systems. Three hours of lecture per week.
Gen. Ed. Competencies Met: Critical Thinking, Ethical Dimensions and Global and Historic Awareness.
Course Outcomes
- Understand humankind’s ties to and dependence on the natural world.
- Identify social structural forces which shape the most basic experiences of daily life, with food as the core subject.
- Develop a global awareness of the intricate and complex systems which bind humankind across nations and borders.
- Engage in critical thinking and problem solving, especially regarding food within the context of climate change and resource depletion.