Food, Health & Law

Food, Health and Law is a Social Science class taught by Jennifer Hamilton.

Announcements and Important Links
Course websites Hampedia: https://hampedia.org/wiki/Food%2C_Health_%26_Law Hampshire Courseware: https://athena.hampshire.edu/S299473/index.php [Online readings are available here. Requires user ID and password.]

Online Office Hours Sign-Up

Syllabus

Course Description
When we make a trip to the grocery store, most of us don't realize that we're surrounded by law. How is what we eat and how we eat bound up in law? How does law affect and shape our food landscapes and our experiences of health and illness? In this course, we will explore various intersections among food, health, and law including the historical development of food regulation in the United States and internationally; the simultaneous rise of fast food, the automobile, and the interstate commerce system; and, the industrialization of agricultural production and its relationship to new health risks.

Learning Goals

 * Multi-Cultural
 * Project-based
 * Presenting
 * Reading
 * Writing

Course Goals
1) To introduce students to the following substantive areas: anthropology of food, social studies of health and medicine, and legal studies. 2) To introduce students to qualitative ethnographic methods and social scientific research methods. 3) To help students to build and improve skills in critical reading and writing. 4) To challenge students to develop new perspectives and to expand their skills of critical thinking. 5) To enable students to design and implement individual project-based work.

Useful Websites
Food Law Org

http://www.foodlaw.org/

Food Law Prof Blog 

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/foodlaw/

Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources

http://www.mass.gov/agr/index.htm

US Food and Drug Administration 

http://www.fda.gov/