The Rituals of Dinner
Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, Religion x3694, e-mail: jkraus@wheatoncollege.edu
Fall 2007
DESCRIPTION:
Margaret Visser suggests in her book The Rituals of Dinner that table manners originated to curb our instinct
to use our knives on our fellow diners rather than on our dinner. Regardless of
their origins, the rituals of dinner certainly have become symbolic means for
representing and even mediating controversies - both within a culture and
between different cultures. Thus, literature and art from the Bible to Babette's
Feast have used the setting of meals to
represent social conflicts or tensions between the sexes, between old and
young, competing philosophies and religious perspectives, rich and poor, the
Orient and the West, and so on. Particular attention will be paid to the
spiritual significance of meals - their role in shaping one's personal
identity, group solidarity, and relationships with transcendent or supernatural
reality.
Drawing upon theories from anthropology, religious studies, and psychology
for "deciphering" the language of meals and their rituals - we will
interpret some of the "great controversies" represented in ancient
literary and contemporary cinematic accounts of banquets. We will examine
ancient texts such as Genesis, Song of Songs, and Luke's Gospel from the Bible,
the Jewish Passover seder, and Plato's Symposium, and contemporary films such as What’s
Cooking?, Babette's Feast, Tampopo, Like Water for Chocolate, and My Dinner With Andre. Much
of the course the course is devoted to acquiring “book knowledge” about the
meaning of meals. But another important way we acquire knowledge is through
experience, so we will be engaged in a significant number of farm and food
related activities outside of class (in collaboration with two other FYS’s) to
gain “experiential knowledge” about what goes into a meal. The rituals we
study, perform, and design are intended to integrate these two types of
knowledge in a single activity, so that we will not only know in our heads what
our meals mean, but we can also feel, see, taste, and act it out. Rituals get
us to know things not only in our minds but also in our limbs and sense organs.
And finally, rituals are not just things that are handed down to us, or imposed
by others upon us as passive recipients. We have the power to shape old and create new rituals
that say exactly what we know and mean to say about our relations with other
people and with nature. That’s
what we’ll be doing when we design collaboratively the end of semester
“sustainable banquet” ritual for our seminar and our two partner FYS’s.
Collaborations. Your FYS has shared
activities with two other FYS’s , The Complete Amateur Naturalist, and
Understanding New England Forests.
Using ideas presented in your summer reading book, The
Omnivore’s Dilemma, we will explore the use
of a CSA( community sustained agriculture), work on a small garden at Wheaton
that the three FYS classes share, and forage in the Wheaton Woods to search for
food. The food we grow, gather and prepare will be part of a celebratory end of
semester feast.
This course is also part of the Food
Connection 23002. For more
information about this connection, see below.*
GOALS OF THIS COURSE: This course is
designed to assist you to
1. "read" and "speak" the
language of food and food rituals
2. understand how meal rituals both reflect and
try to resolve social conflicts and express our relationships with the natural
world
3. recognize and reflect on the importance of
"everyday" behavior - your own meal "rituals"
4. integrate book knowledge and experiential
knowledge about meals
5. use the tools of the Wheaton learning
environment, i.e., library research, computer-supported learning, etc.
6. practice collaborative learning
READINGS:
The following paperback books have been ordered for this seminar at the
Wheaton Bookstore. Students must purchase the required books; purchasing the recommended books is optional - the reading assignments from
them are not! In addition to these books, the required reading for the seminar
includes a number or articles and book chapters which are on 2 hr. reserve in
the library. and are urged to make personal photocopies of the article
readings.
Required:
Oxford Study Bible
The Symposium ; and, The Phaedrus: Plato's
erotic dialogues (translated with
introduction and commentaries by William S. Cobb; Albany, N.Y.: State
University of New York Press, 1993).
Margaret Visser, The Rituals of Dinner (New York : Grove Weidenfeld, 1991)
A.C. Gurney, The Dining Room (1981)
Food and Culture: A Reader, Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterink, eds.(New
York/London: Routledge, 1997)
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin, 2006)
Diane Hacker, A Pocket Manual of Style (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, latest edition)
(Required by all FYS's)
Finally, videos will be shown in the Meneely at 8:00 PM on the Thursday
nights scheduled in your syllabus, and
will also be available on reserve in the library
Videos:
Babette's Feast
Mostly Martha
Waitress
Like Water for Chocolate
Tampopo
Big Night
Eat Drink Man Woman
My Dinner With Andre
The Last Supper
What’s Cooking?
For the schedule of movies, click here.
Bibliography
on Food Studies, etc.
Schedule of Assignments
8/29 W Food, Identity, and Nature
Discussion of Summer Reading: The
Omnivore’s Dilemma
9/3 No Class – Labor Day
9/5 W Eating Rituals
Read: Rituals of Dinner,
"Behaving" 2-37
[9/6-9/10 Oxford Symposium on food and Cookery – I’ll be out of town,
communicating by blog]
*9/7 F 6:30-9:30 AM
Moosehill CSA visit for those signed up. Pickup and return in front of Slype.
9/10 M Eat Drink Man Woman in
class, 1 page response due (Tu 9/18)]
Read: Rituals of Dinner ,
"Learning to Behave" 39-78; A.C. Gurney, The Dining Room
*6:30-9:30 AM Moosehill CSA visit for those signed up. Pickup and return
in front of Slype.
9/12 W Meals as Rites of Passage
[Eve of Rosh Hashanah]
Read: Rituals of Dinner, "The
Pleasure of Your Company," pp.79-109; Food and Culture, pp. 80-91 (E. N. Anderson)
*6:30-9:30 AM Moosehill CSA visit for those signed up. Pickup and return
in front of Slype.
*9/14 F 6:30-9:30 AM Moosehill CSA visit for those signed up. Pickup and
return in front of Slype.
9/17 M Meals and Family
Read: Rituals of Dinner,
"The Pleasure of Your Company," pp.109-136
*6:30-9:30 AM Moosehill CSA visit for those signed up. Pickup and return
in front of Slype.
9/19 W Student Presentations (Eat
Drink Man Woman)
*6:30-9:30 AM Moosehill CSA visit for those signed up. Pickup and return
in front of Slype.
9/20 Th. evening 8:00 PM in the
Media Center in Balfour Hood
Mostly Martha 1 page response due (F
9/21)
[9/21 F Eve of Yom Kippur, Jewish day of fasting]
9/24 M How to research food, meals,
and related topics
Library Session I (class meets in the Library – Woolley Electronic
Classroom)
9/26 W Eating and Remembering:
Biblical Rituals of Dinner I
Read: Genesis 1-11; Ex 12:1-13:16; Gen 12-36; Leviticus 23:1-44; Selections
from the Passover Haggadah (to be distributed); Brumberg-Kraus, “Does God Care
What We Eat?” in Food and Judaism, 2004 (on electronic reserve). Recommended: Joel
Hecker, “…The Religious Significance of Eating in Judaism, “ Mystical
Bodies, Mystical Meal: Eating and Embodiment in Medieval Kabbalah (Detroit: Wayne State, 2005), 19-56 (on Ereserve)
Student presentations (Mostly
Martha)
9/27 Th. evening What’s Cooking?
1 page response due (F 9/28)
10/1 M The Omnivore’s Dilemma and the Bible’s Answer:
Biblical Rituals of Dinner II
Read: Gen 1-9; Lev 9:5-11:46; Food and Culture, 55-66 (Jean Soler); Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, "Meals as Midrash: A Survey of Ancient Meals in Jewish
Studies Scholarship" in Food
and Judaism, 2004 (on electronic
reserve).
Evening Visit to my sukkah, at my home
in Providence, RI; details TBA
10/3 W Systems of meals - Mary
Douglas
Read: Food and Culture, pp.36-54
(Mary Douglas)
1 page response due in class,
10/8 M NO CLASS - OCTOBER BREAK
10/10 W The Biology of Food and Drink [Eve of Sukkot –
Jewish “Thanksgiving”]
Reading: Betsey Dyer, "Gram-Positive Bacteria of Food and Drink," A
Field Guide to Bacteria, pp. 167-188; The
Omnivore’s Dilemma
10/11 Th. evening What’s Cooking? 1 page response due 1
page response due (F 10/12)
10/13 Saturday AM Service project/Field Trip Boston Food Bank
10/15 M Eating Rituals of
Differentiation, Acculturation, and Assimilation
Student presentation (What’s
Cooking?)
*6 PM DINNER WITH PRESIDENT
CRUTCHER – PRESIDENT’S HOUSE?
10/17 W Food, Love, and Sex
Read: Song of Songs
10/18 Th. evening (Like Water for Chocolate)
Read: Food and Culture, pp. 159-179
(Joan Jacobs Brumberg)
1 page response due (F 10/19)
10/22 M
Assignment due - Song of Songs style
poem due in my office (or by e-mail).
Student presentations (Like Water
for Chocolate)
10/24 W Eating and Talking:
Classical Greek Rituals of Dinner
Read: Plato's Symposium
- Note that this response is due on Monday!
10/25 Th. evening Waitress
Read: Food and Culture,
pp.? (Devereaux)1 page response due (F 10/26)
10/29 M Food Research Paper Bibliography – Library Session II
(class meets in the Library – Woolley Electronic Classroom)
10/31 W
Read: Plato's Symposium; Rituals of Dinner, 272-284
1 page response to Plato's Symposium
due in class
Student presentation (Waitress)
11/1 Th evening 8:00 PM in the Media
Center in Balfour Hood
My Dinner with Andre
1 page response due (F 11/2)
11/5 M Eating and Talking: Biblical Rituals of Dinner III
Read: Gospel according to Luke 1-14;
Rituals of Dinner, pp. 298-337
*Recommended: Brumberg-Kraus, “’Torah on the Table:’ A Sensual Morality”
(paper presented for the 2007 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery: Food and
Morality) on Blackboard
Student presentations (My Dinner
With Andre)
11/7 W Eating and Knowing: “They knew him in the breaking
of the bread”
Read: Luke 15-24; Rituals of
Dinner, pp. 340-357;
11/8 Thursday Night: 8:00 PM in the
Media Center in Balfour Hood
See: Last Supper
Read: I Corinthians; 1
page response due (F 11/9)
Library Assignment(Annotated Bibliography) Due in my office
Thursday 11/8
11/12 M Medieval Rituals of Dinner
I: Eating as Seeing
Read: Rabbenu Bahya ben Arba, Shulhan Shel Arba [The Four-legged Table”] (selections on Blackboard); Gen 18; Ex 16:1-36; 24:9-11;
Deuteronomy 8:1-10; selections from illuminated Passover Haggadot (on
Blackboard)
Student presentations (Last
Supper)
11/14 W Medieval Rituals of Dinner
II: “Eat this Book” - Eating as Mystical Union with God
Read: Food and Culture, 138-158
(Carol Walker Bynum); Blake Eskin, “Books to Chew On,” NY Times 3/26/06 (see pdf file in Course Documents on Blackboard);
selections on “Reading as Eating” to be handed out in class
Assignment due (“Reading as Eating”
Assignment due)
11/15 Thursday Night 8:00 PM in the
Media Center in Balfour Hood
See: Tampopo
Read: Food and Culture,
pp. 296-314 (Anne Ellison)
1 page response due (F 11/16)
11/19 M See Big Night
Read: Rituals of Dinner,
196-242 ;Food and Culture, 338-356 (Jack
Goody)
Assignment due: 1st draft of final
paper
11/21 W No Class THANKSGIVING BREAK
11/26 M
Student presentations (Tampopo)
11/28 W Meals as Art
See Decoding Feran Adria in class
Read: Rituals of Dinner,
242-295
Student presentations (Big Night)
11/29 Th. evening 8:00 PM in the
Media Center in Balfour Hood
See:Babette's Feast
Read: Food and Culture, pp. 315-337
(Stephen Mennell); Omnivore’s Dilemma, Selections from Brillat Savarin, the Physiology of Taste (on EReserve)
1 page response due (F 11/30)
12/3 M Discuss: 1st draft;
Student presentations (Babette's
Feast)
12/5 W Assignment due: Final Paper
"performance" of student rituals
ADDITIONAL MEETINGS OUTSIDE OF CLASS ON DATES TBA.
· 1
field trip to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in Sharon, MA,
· 1
field trip foraging with “Understanding the Forests of New England” and “The
Complete Amateur Naturalist” FYS’s,
· Shifts
tending our FYS garden (behind Balfour-Hood) e.g., weeding, planting, watering,
harvesting, etc.
· 1
cooking/canning workshop
· dinner
at my house in Providence
· final
banquet ritual for us and our partner FYS’s
REQUIREMENTS:
1) Class participation An
electronic threaded-discussion has been set up on the Wheaton Web for this
course to which students are required to subscribe. This on-line discussion
group is intended to be forum for students to continue discussions begun in
class, to raise questions prior to in-class discussion, and for general
communications, syllabus updates, etc. between class members and the professor.
Students are expected to make at least 10 contributions to the on-line
discussion (@one per weekly topic) in order to receive full credit for class
participation.
2) 1-page response paper assignments (10%)
1. Nine1- page written responses to readings or video due usually on the
Fridays following the movie (unless otherwise specified on the syllabus).
Submit them in duplicate, one copy in the Assignments section of Blackboard,
and the other - post them on our FYS 20 Web Discussion page. This is how you
will be graded for class participation. You are exempt from this paper the week
of your presentation.
3) Class Presentation (10%)
Each of you will be responsible for leading a class discussion on one of the
10 films we see, or Plato's Symposium.
Thus, one or two students will lead discussions on each film, and the Symposium.
You will need to choose your film (or the
Symposium) by Wednesday 9/24. To get full credit for your
presentation you must:
a. Meet with me before your presentation to discuss it!
b. Read and comment on the other student response papers (as per guidelines
I'll give you)
c. Make a 5-10 minute presentation (as per guidelines I'll give you) that
i. connects the movie to the
assigned essay from Food and Culture
ii. points out important aspects
of the movie's cultural or historical context
iii. points out important
sociological, anthropological, gender, religious, etc. issues raised by the
movie
iv. generates a dynamic class
discussion
You may choose to use handouts, visual aids, or whatever else you think
might help make your points. Your grade will be based on how well you meet the
criteria in "c." and the guidelines I give you. Your final paper will
be on the same topic/film you choose for your presentation.
N.B.: You do not have to hand in a response paper on the film (or book) you
present.
4) Two Bibliography assignments (20%)
Assignment 1: Getting the Bibliographical Format Right
After the first library session on Refworks Software, enter all the assigned readings on the syllabus with complete and proper documentation into an Refworks file. You are to include all the required books, the individual essays in Food and Culture (as well as the book itself), the movies, the editions of Plato, the Bible, the summer reading, and any other readings on the syllabus. Hand in an MS Word version of your list in Chicago Manual of Style bibliographical format. You can easily convert your Refworks data into Word, though be sure to proofread your files both before and after you convert them, to make sure that they are punctuated correctly. Sometimes periods, semicolons, etc. get lost in the electronic translation, and have to be corrected manually. I will be grading only the MS Word version of your bibliography.
Assignment 2: Compiling a
Research Bibliography
1. Pick an issue raised by the readings and/or movie from your in-class
presentation.
2. Find at least ten articles and ten books - in addition to the ones already
in the common class bibliography from the syllabus - that deal directly or have
significant bearing on the issue you picked. Be particularly alert to include
books and articles that refer explicitly to food or meals in connection to your
topic.
You certainly may include books and articles that give background
information on your issue, even if they are not focused on food, meals or
rituals, e.g., area or historical studies of early 19th century France,
medieval and Renaissance Spain, 1st century CE urban Christianity, Platonic
literature, etc. Hint: To keep your bibliography relevant and focused, look for
general studies that 1) explicitly discuss your topic (check book indices to
determine this), that are cited by many of the other authors you found.
3. Identify a book or article that you think best or most interestingly
treats your subject, and the book or article that you think is the worst on
your topic
4. Identify the particular approach of each book and article. Does it employ
a particular method or discipline, i.e., cultural anthropology, psychology,
scientific, comparative religious, etc.? (Hint: If it's a journal article, what
type of journal is it in, i.e., The American Anthropologist, Nature, The Journal of Biblical
Literature? Does it represent an example of
"area studies," e.g. Jewish studies, Spanish studies, food studies,
women's studies? What is its position on your issue: pro or con? peripheral or
of central importance?
5. Enter all each bibliographical item in your own Refworks file. There is a
"notes" field for each record in which you can enter your comments
regarding points #3 and #4 above.
6. Hand in both your Refworks file
and an MS Word form of this second, more specific bibliography. I will add them
to one general bibliography for the course. Your MS Word version of the
bibliography should be in annotated with the notes you entered in the notes
field in proper MLA bibl. form (Use Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual, s.27b (pp. 91-95, 97-98 to check for correct
format.)
You will draw upon these sources for your in-class presentation and your
final paper.
5) Research Paper 10-12 typed pages
(20%)
1st draft DUE M11/17; final draft DUE W 12/10
Pick a topic brought up in your readings, the movies, and/or the resources
in the class bibliography. It can be whatever interests you, as long as it
Write a 10-12 typed, double-spaced paper on this topic in which you
You may use the one or more of the four issues we have laid out as criteria
for evaluating meals to help you frame your thesis (and the implicit question
it answers), i.e.,
Grading:
Your paper will be evaluated on the basis of four criteria: Proper
documentation, content, organization, and style as follows
1. Proper Documentation (20%)
a. correct format for internal citations or footnotes
b. correct format for bibliographic citations
2. Content (40%)
a. Clear thesis
b. Concrete, specific supporting examples
c. Contextualization of your discussion
i. Do you explain and support why you think your point is important?
ii. Do you use the most appropriate supporting sources?
iii. Do you address the relevant counter-evidence or opposing positions?
iv. Do you identify the most important methodological approaches for your topic
(i.e., anthropological, comparative religious, social historical,
psychological, evolutionary biological, art historical, literary, etc.)?
3. Organization (20%)
a. Introduction with thesis?
b. Topic sentences with supporting examples in each paragraph in the body of
your paper?
c. Logical sequence of development of your argument?
d. Conclusion?
4. Style (20%)
a. Do you use the right word choices?
b. Do you use clear, grammatical, and non-contorted syntax? Active voice rather
than passive voice sentence constructions are generally preferred, except in
cases where you intentionally mean to be indefinite (as I do here ;-)).
6) Creative writing projects (30%)
a. Song of Songs style poem (10%)
Compose your own poem in the Biblical poetic style of the Song of Songs,
using food metaphors
b. “Reading as Eating” experiment
(10%)
c. Design your own eating ritual (10%) DUE LAST WEEK OF CLASS
i. Time will be set aside at the end of the
semester to perform them (Your ritual should take no longer than 5 minutes)
ii. Hand in a written description of your ritual
that includes:
1. The reason(s) for doing your ritual
2. The occasion(s) when it is to be performed
3. A narrative description (or script) of the
ritual itself
Recommended reading: Catherine Bell,
Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, New York: Oxford University
Press, 1997, pp. 91-169 ( on Electronic
Reserve ). Skim for the sections most relevant to your ritual. You may also
find this useful for your research paper.
N.B.: Compliance with the Honor Code: For
all course work, students will write and sign the following: "I have abided
by the Wheaton College Honor Code in this work."
Attendance Policy: For every 2
unexcused absences after the 1st week of class, you will be penalized 1/3 of a
letter grade (e.g., from A- to B+ for 2 absences; A- to B for 4 absences, etc.)
off your final course grade.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES ARE INVITED TO DISCUSS WITH ME ACCOMMODATIONS TO
MEET YOUR SPECIAL NEEDS
*Connection 23002. Food
This two- or three-course
connection links the First-Year Seminar course "The Rituals of
Dinner" or Anth 210, which is required, to one or two courses in the
sciences. The anthropology course covers such topics as how culture shapes
taste and cuisine, how different forms of food production affect social
structure and nutrition, and the political factors that cause famine and food
shortage. Currently, the course has substantial units on eating disorders and
the causes and consequences of malnutrition, as well as on food safety and the
controversies around genetically modified food. It has several components that
interface with and complement components of each of the science courses as well
as an extensive service learning component.
Bio 205 contains substantial units on weight control and
eating disorders and on critical issues in nutrition, such as the world food supply
and the influence of advertising. Biology students will gain in-depth
perspectives on the cultural aspects of food availability, food choice and
eating customs. Anthropology students will appreciate the biological parameters
underlying the contribution of nutrients to health and disease.
Bio 262 features a survey of the plant kingdom and a study
of plant anatomy. Students learn the distinguishing features of each plant
phylum and of selected families of flowering plants, the evolutionary features
of each group, the ecology of each group, and how plants from these groups are
utilized by human societies. The course looks especially at plants that are
important in the lives of students, as sources of food, beverages, medicines,
and industrial products, and as objects of aesthetic beauty. Complementary to
the service learning component of Anthropology 210, students enrolled in Plant
Biology go out into the field of the supermarket, the Harvard Botanical Museum
and the cranberry bog.
Chem 109 will most clearly connect in two arenas: the
function of micronutrients and the potential and problems of genetically
modified foods. The Edible Chemicals course focuses specifically on the
chemical components of food; the constituents of food, their chemical structures,
functional properties and their interactions. A laboratory component of the
course examines not only the chemical characteristics of proteins,
carbohydrates, fats and micronutrients, but also their behavior together, in
cooking and in digestion. A separate section of the course focuses on
genetically modified foods, their potential and problems and the reality of
their presence on our supermarket shelves.
The Connection must be completed with at least one course
from the two areas: Social Sciences (Fsem 101, Anth 210) and Natural Science.
It may be either a two or three-course connection.
Connections:
First-Year Seminar Rituals of Dinner
and/or Anth 210 Feast or Famine: The Ecology and Politics
of Food
with
Bio 205 Nutrition
and/or Bio 262 Plant Biology
and/or Chem 109 Edible Chemicals
Content
by Jonathan
Brumberg-Kraus, Associate Professor of Religion
Last Update 8/16/07