CUNY Academic Commons

CUNY Graduate Center Food Studies Concentration

Food Studies is one of 13 concentrations at the Graduate Center. This group is for students interested in or already taking courses that count toward the concentration, and faculty that teach Food Studies-related courses. Here we can communicate about developing, supporting, cataloging and promoting Food Studies courses at the GC.

Here’s a description of the concentration, from the Graduate Center website:

Food is central to our existence, but the social and cultural study of food is a relative newcomer to the academy. It is only recently that the connections between food and public health have been in the national spotlight and the study of the food system, historically the domain of agriculture and nutrition programs, has become a pressing interdisciplinary endeavor incorporating health, environmental, political, social, cultural, and historical approaches. This concentration provides an intellectual home for the interdisciplinary study of food at the Graduate Center by exposing enrolled doctoral students to foundational work in the field and then encouraging them to pursue their interests in food studies within their own departments. To complete the concentration, students must take four courses: Food, Culture, and Society, an interdisciplinary course which functions as a proseminar and introduction to the field; two courses from any department or discipline which have food as their primary theme; and the Food Studies writing capstone, in which students will work on a dissertation chapter and/or article for publication that has any area or issue in food studies as its theme. For advanced students, the requirement of this last course will be waived and another substantive course substituted.