History Of Food In China

AY2019/2020 Semester 1

Food constitutes a vital aspect of Chinese culture that figures saliently both in China and beyond. It forms a significant aspect of heritage identification for many ethnic communities in Singapore. This course uses the lens of food to explore Chinese history and various historical methodologies. Students will assess the complex ways that food connects not only to daily life, through cooking and eating, as spice and as medicine, from the expression and formation of the self to the mediation of social relationship, but to larger histories of trade, ecology, medicine, religion, agriculture, travel and ethnic identity.