Challenges in the Interdisciplinary Teaching of Food and Foodways

Abstract

This paper explores what constitutes truly interdisciplinary teaching and learning with respect to food studies and foodways. Drawing on experience and feedback from the team-taught course “The Ecology, Ethics, and Economics of Food” at the University of La Verne in La Verne, California, the paper offers dual perspectives from a cell and molecular biologist and from a cultural historian on the challenges of teaching about food from a combined science/humanities perspective. These challenges include defining substantive and methodological priorities, communicating across disciplinary boundaries, and balancing effectively the different styles of learning traditional to different disciplines. In addition, the paper addresses the larger questions of what comprises food studies, what constitutes interdisciplinarity, and how scholars from widely divergent fields and backgrounds can work together cooperatively in an effective pedagogical context.