Food Studies
Hannah Cutting-Jones, Director of Food Studies
412 Friendly Hall
530-327-8479
hcutting@uoregon.edu
School of Global Studies and Languages
114 Friendly Hall
541-346-9780
gslundergrad@uoregon.edu
gslgrad@uoregon.edu
Food is central to human life. It is therefore no surprise that the research interests of faculty and students across a wide range of disciplines relate to food in some way. In the social sciences and humanities, for example, scholars examine issues including food access and affordability as well as the cultural significance and representation of food and agriculture. In the natural and applied sciences, researchers explore the biological and ecological dimensions of food systems and food-related health issues. For decades, scholars working in these various fields have highlighted important aspects of food’s key position in the human experience over time and across space. Too often though, these streams of inquiry have stayed relatively isolated from one another.
The UO Food Studies Program developed out of a growing recognition that an integrated perspective on food matters is vital to developing fuller understandings of complex food-related issues. Food Studies brings the power of an interdisciplinary approach to widely varied food themes and topics. Such an approach is more than the sum of its disciplinary parts; it provides new insights into the ways in which food mediates social, political, environmental, cultural and economic processes.
Food Studies minors and graduate students are learning about and investigating both global and local food systems, sustainability, and the impacts of climate change on food. Students interact with programs and schools across (and beyond) the university, including the Law School, School of Education, School of Business, the Native American and Indigenous Studies program, and Study Abroad offerings in Italy and Greece.
Food Studies Affiliated Faculty
David Meek, assistant professor (food sovereignty, popular education, India and Brazil). BA, 2004, Bard College; MSc, 2007, Antioch, New England; PhD, 2014, Georgia. (2018)
Erin McKenna, professor (feminist theory, American pragmatism). BA, 1987, Claremont McKenna College; MA, 1990, PhD, 1992, Purdue. (2016)
Galen Martin, senior instructor II (environmental and cultural geography, global food security, Latin America). AA, 1977, Hesston College; BA, 1980, Goshen College; MA, 1985, Oregon; PhD, 2003, California, Davis. (1998)
Hannah Cutting-Jones, instructor (food studies, history of food, pacific history, colonialism, protein). BA, 1997; MA, 1998, Brown University; PhD, 2018, University of Auckland.
Harper Keeler, instructor (civic agriculture, landscape biodynamics, urban farm director). BLA, 1995; MLA 2011, Oregon. (2010)
Julie Hessler, Associate Professor (20th-century Russia, Europe). BA, 1988, Yale; MA, 1989, PhD, 1996, Chicago. (1995)
Mary K. Jaeger, professor (Latin literature, historiography, food in antiquity). BA, 1982, Gustavus Adolphus; MA, 1984, PhD, 1990, California, Berkeley. (1990)
Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, senior instructor 1, BA, 1985, San Diego State, MA, 1988, PhD, 1997 California Santa Barbara. (2015)
Sarah Stapleton, assistant professor (food and environmental justice, social contexts of science and environmental education). BA, 2001, Sweet Briar College; EdM, 2005, Harvard; PhD, 2015, Michigan State. (2015)
Stephen R. Wooten, associate professor (local-global dynamics, food studies, Africa). BA, 1986, Massachusetts, Amherst; MA, 1993, PhD, 1997, Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. (1999)