As a scholar and food writer, Dafne has published a number of books and articles and teaches food studies programs or lecturing for many groups of american students from different universities, such as University of Washington, a number of universities connected to Gustolab International Institute, and John Cabot University. Most lectures can be combined with hands-on labs and field visits to young and successful food businesses, FAO, the Sustainable Food Project of the American Academy in Rome, farmers' markets, urban community gardens, architectural and archaeological sites of interest for the history of food. Check out two of Dafne's popular university programs: Culture and politics of food, a quarterly program for the University of Washington, and Food Culture, for Gustolab International Institute.
Hereafter all the possible topics of lectures:
ITALIAN FOOD CULTURES
- Situating the Italian gastronomy in relation to the Mediterranean, north-European and American areas of influence - The Mediterranean roots and the Germanic influences in Italian farming and food culture - The Arabic influences during the middle ages countered by French courts cuisines during the renaissance - How Italians integrated the American produce
- The customary pillars of Italian “foodscapes” – Production modes and the related staples or dishes: farming, pastoralism, forest husbandry - The relationship between regional production modes, landscapes and “foodscapes” in Italy: the example of wine - The specific taste for regional differentiation: northern versus southern foodways
- The recent historical influences on contemporary Italian food habits - The search for a common identity after Risorgimento’s unification and the impact of the “Italian Miracle” on farming and eating habits - The changing women’s role in Italian kitchens during the last 3 generations: nonna’s kitchen, the economic boom and the recent revival of home cooking - The new staples brought about by the industrial revolution
- Reviving the “terroir” - The image of Italian E.V.O. abroad, DOC and DOP labels for world famous parmesan and wines - Food and local identities: the importance given by Italians to the “taste of place” and to differentiation - The commercial power of “handmade” and “home made” foods in contemporary Italy: mulino bianco marketing strategy versus slow food history
- Crafted foods and markets in the history of Italian gastronomy - Addressing scarcity in space and time: how Italians created their “typical” delicacies - The historical Italian city-states and the role of cities (capo-luoghi artusiani) in the governance of farming - How bakers, butchers and other handicraftsmen further civilize food inventing new staples - Transparency, democracy, conviviality, and catharsis: the role of marketplaces in Italian cities - Food chains in contemporary metropolitan cities: the example of Rome
- Food and identity - Food as a means of distinction in terms of regional belonging within Italy and national belonging in the case of emigrants - Food choices as a pattern expressing social classes' relationships (peasant foods, aristocratic foods and bourgeois foods, the marketplace and democracy) – Fasting and feasting: the symbols of Christianity in the Italian food culture and the inheritance from religious calendars - Commensality at home and in public: family meals, community feasts, hostelries, restaurants, street food and fast food
- Italian food values confronted to globalization - The changes in everyday staples, the Italian consumers’ hardwired values, the conflict between production (consumerism) and re-production (homesteading) in the kitchen - The cuisine model Italian emigrants marketed abroad: a new global identity that Italy partly endorsed - The relationship of Italians to “ethnic” cuisines: food racism, curiosity, migrants, contaminations - Intolerances, fashions, ideologies: vegetarianism, veganism, gluten or lactose intolerances, raw and macrobiotic diets, contextualized
2. CONTEMPORARY FOODSCAPES
- Food economy in the global era – development patterns, how diets changed after the green revolution, consumers, the environment, biodiversity, production and productivity, food chains, retailers, power dynamics, food trade, homologation, the role of family farming in the global south.
- Food policies – the global debate upon farming, FAO policies, the role of the WFP and the World Bank, EU and the role of subsidies, peak oil, climate change, social justice in food production and distribution, free trade agreements and their role in determining the “foodscapes”, the concepts of food security and food soverignty, urbanization and urban farming.
- Contemporary agroecology – the rise of the organic movement, the counterculture in the 1970’s, the Slow Food movement, the actual difference between green farming, organic farming, biodynamic methodology, synergic farming and permaculture. Experiences of food sovereignty and agroecology in Italy and in the global south.
- Food and the city - how food shaped our cities, before and after industrialization; the role of the marketplace in the city (democracy, catharsis, transparency, negotiation); contemporary food supply in the wholesale public markets and private retailers’ hubs. The examples of Paris, Rome and Barcelona.
- History and geography of food production – locate the main streams in the history of farming techniques, acknowledge the origin of the main food crops – view the global and European puzzle of how hunting, animal husbandry and farming techniques travelled, defining infrastructures, landscapes, social relations in the pre-industrial world. This approach will have a specific focus on a geographical area or time lapse, upon request.
- Italian traditional staples – students will discover the backstage, culture and knowledge of the following: pasta, bread and pizza, olive oil, wine, prosciutto and other cured meats, cheese, truffles and other foods from the forest, tomato sauce. This course(s) would involve filed visits to mills, craftsmen, hands-on labs and tastings, for a better understanding. They shall therefore become able to assess the quality of the above.
- The role of migrations and contaminations in shaping food cultures - locate the main streams in the history of gastronomy, acknowledge the origin of the main staples and cooking techniques – view the global and European puzzle of influences – spices in European history and medieval cuisine.
- Wheat as a plant of civilization – the roots of the mediterranean civilization – threshing milling and storing: the role of wheat in shaping pre-industrial cities – leavening and baking – bread in the Christian iconography – the modernization of wheat farming and processing, how bread came to replace traditional dishes in the areas of rice, corn, manioc, millet and potatoes – the nutritional changes in wheat-based products, and the gluten-free movement.
- Ecology, spirituality and food: the relationship to wilderness – different philosophical approaches to the issue of ecology – dietary and farming prescriptions in different religions – food as a relationship to the non-human world – views upon wilderness: evil or blissful? – witches, shamans and cooks – the contemporary quest of “pureness” in our diets
- Contemporary nutritional dilemmas – from gastronomy to gastro-anomy – the grammars underlying the languages of food cultures – the reductionist definition of nutritional compounds – calories versus nutrients - understanding obesity – the myth of the Mediterranean diet – nutritious value of different foods (foraged, farmed and processed) – the nutritional enhancement of fermented foods
Dafne coordinates and creates courses centered on the culture of food and the relationship between food systems and ecosystems.
An example of great success is that of the U of W. Every year, twenty students from the University of Seattle (UW) come to Rome for 9 weeks to study Culture and Politics of Food in Italy.
Culture and Politics of Food in Italy
Take a look at the pictures from the practical workshops, the class lectures can not, of course, be photographed. You can find below the program's description:
Quarterly study abroad program of the UW- Seattle
The program is worth 15 Credits, level 400
It is an Anthropology major program opened to students from other majors
Professors: Ann Anagnost, Dafne Chanaz
Theme One: The Globalization of the Food Chain
The industrialization of food and the globalization of the food economy in the last fifty years have produced a food system that is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, is a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gasses, and has contributed to the growth of global hunger, malnutrition, and loss of food democracy for most of the world's population. We will be exploring the global debates on whether the answer to all of these problems is a matter of increasing yields through investing in more technology or is a matter that might be best addressed through social and political solutions and grassroots mobilizations for food democracy.
Readings:
Norberg-Hodge, Helena et al. 2002, Bringing the Food Economy Back Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness (entire).
Jarosz, Lucy, 2009 "The Political Economy of Global Governance and the World Food Crisis: The Case of the FAO." Review 32(1):37-60.
Bello, Walden, 2007 "Manufacturing a Global Food Crisis." Global Asia 2(3): 15-25.
Steel, Carolyn, 2008, Hungry City, how food shapes our lives
Movies:
Food Inc.; Fresh; Genetic Roulette; A Farm for the Future
Lectures:
Soil, oil and agriculture (Dafne)
The urban-rural relationship and food sovereignty (Dafne)
Bring the food economy home (Ann)
Reflections on world food day (Common)
Understanding the FAO (Ann)
Program Activities:
World Food Day Celebrations at the FAO
The McGovern Lecture at the FAO
Run for Food
Assignments:
Ungraded short assignments
Short paper on World Food Day activities
Theme Two: Food Culture and Gastronomy
How has the human relationship to food evolved in the transition to settled agricultural life and more recently to modern urbanism and an industrialized food system? We will be looking at the changes in the composition of the human diet but also in the technologies of food production and processing that have accompanied these shifts. We will be looking at the history and culinary geography of Italian cuisine in particular while developing an understanding of the field of "gastronomy" as a holistic understanding of food and eating.
Readings:
Steel, Carolyn, 2009, Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives. (chapters 1-3)
Counihan, Carole, 2004, Around the Tuscan Table. (chapters 1-5 required)
Dickie, John, 2008 Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food. (chapters 1, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20 required)
Meneley, Anne, 2004, "Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Slow Food." Anthropologica 46, 2 (2004): 165-176.
Black, Rachel E., 2005, "The Porta Palazzo Farmers' Market: Local Food, Regulations, and Changing Traditions." Anthropology of Food 4: 1-14.
Mueller, Tom, 2007, "Slippery Business: the Trade in Adulterated Olive Oil." New Yorker, August 13.
Donadio, Rachel, 2013, "Vibrant Market is Heart of Multiethnic Capital." New York Times, August 11.
Lectures:
What is an artisanal food, history of pasta in Italy (Common)
Slow food movement (Ann)
Seasonal improvisation (Dafne)
Around the tuscan table (Ann)
Bread and pizza making (Dafne)
Program Activities:
Visit to Spannocchia Farm (wine making, organic gardening, cinta senses tour: from the piglets to the prosciutto, applications of ancient technologies to address contemporary problems)
Tour of Campo de' Fiori Market and cooking class with Bill Guion
Breadmaking and pizza making
Italian Pastas and related sauces
Cooking Lessons
Cheesemaking with Enrico and Anna
Assignments:
Ungraded short assignments
Artisanal food project (Paper and presentation)
Theme three: New Food Economies
What does it mean in the post-industrial context to "bring the food economy back home?" How are local food movements mobilizing around the concept of local food? What is the potential for these movements to contribute to systemic change and for restoring food democracy?
Readings:
Litfin, Karen, "Gleanings from the Harvest: Learning from Ecovillage Experiments around the World."
Leitch, Allison, 2003, "Slow Food and the Politics of Pork Fat: Italian Food and European Identity." Ethnos 68, 4 (2003): 437-462.
Tiemann, Thomas K., 2008, "Grower-Only Farmers' Markets: Public Spaces and Third Places." Journal of Popular Culture 41,3: 467-487.
Lectures:
Spiritual relationship to food in local cultures (Dafne)
The culture of olive oil (Ann)
Fermentation in the Kitchen (Dafne)
Farm to table collaboration (Rome Sustainable Food Programme)
Role of the Marketplace in the city (Dafne)
Activities:
Visit to Zolle
Visit to Casa del Cibo
Tour of New Farmers' Markets
Tour of Community Gardens
Presentation by Adriano Zaccagnini on the Campaign for Small Farms (Campagna per un'agricoltura contadina)
Presentation by Luca Colombo on seed saving, biodiversity and GMO politics
Visit to Panta Rei Eco-Village:
- Group everyday cooking activities: improvisation on season's products
- olive harvesting, olive milling at the artisanal mill, tasting of the freshly milled oil on bruschetta
- visit to the permaculture vegetable garden, water filtration and sustainable heating system,
- wild forageing lesson and exploration of spices: food as medicine
- straw and clay ecological architecture: practical lab
- basket making lab
Assignment:
Panta Rei Daily Journal
Short paper on food democracy
