DHIS 25A24 - Meat: a Carnivorous History of the Western Food System

Meat consumption has long been an emotionally charged issue, but contemporary debates over the ethics of eating animals are growing increasingly heated, fueled by the fact that modern livestock agriculture is held responsible for approximately twenty percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This system’s aim has always been to profitably produce an abundance of animal protein and it does so with tremendous efficiency; humans eat so many chickens today that chicken bones are considered one of the primary geological markers of the Anthropocene. Although this plenty provides essential protein for human diets, it also comes at an immense cost to environments, laborers, and the animals themselves and has resulted in the dramatic restructuring of lands, markets, and culinary practice worldwide. The aim of this course is to help students understand how and why large-scale meat production became a central part of today’s global food system. To do so, this course combines approaches from environmental, economic, and culinary history and focuses primarily on the agricultural exchanges between Great Britain, Continental Europe, and the United States, both of which had outsized influence in shaping the contours of food production worldwide. At the end of this course, students will have a greater knowledge of the histories of agriculture, food commodity markets, and individual consumption in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

None, but some basic knowledge of agricultural and American and European economic history would be beneficial.

The course will be evaluated in three parts: a) a series of three brief response papers (200-300 words) analyzing selected readings throughout the course (30%); b) a mid-term exam (30 minutes) comprising of open-response questions (30%); and a final research essay of between 2000 and 3000 words on a prompt provided later in the course (40%).