TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Biltekoff’s teaching prioritizes active learning (even in large classes), equity, and three types of connections: between learners and course content, among learners, and between learners and herself. She sees each of these priorities as in the service of the others. Her teaching is also driven by commitment to interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and collaboration. She supports students in embracing the productive discomfort that can arise from all of these.
COURSES TAUGHT
Food in American Culture | American Studies/Food Science and Technology 55
This course is about why we eat what, and how, we do. Together we will ask a lot of questions about American eating habits: Why is it so important for families and communities to come together at the table? Is cooking an expression of creativity and power for women, or a sign of their oppression? Are we really what we eat? Should we love or loathe convenience foods? What kind of role should responsibility play in our choices about what to eat? What should the future of food look like? We will use many disciplines (history, sociology, anthropology, consumer research) and analyze many different kinds of texts (images, TV shows, films, newspaper articles). Students learn basic vocabulary and concepts for analyzing American eating habits and develop an understanding of the three main influences on American eating habits (identity, convenience and responsibility) as well as the tensions that arise between them. They also learn about some of the central debates that shape current thinking about food in American culture and practice articulating their own informed opinions on those debates.
Food, Science and Society | American Studies 101c
This small, very interactive seminar will examine big questions about the relationship between food, science, and society. We will explore a range of familiar but controversial topics at the intersection of food and science: processed food, natural claims, GMOs, alternative proteins, cell cultured meat and more. We won’t answer the question of whether you should eat, or worry about, any of these things. We will develop analytical tools for understanding these controversies as part of larger debates about the role of science and technology in the food system, the role of scientific authority in food politics, the relationship between science and society, and the future of food.
Eating in America | American Studies 155
This class offers students an active learning experience through which they will learn to think through the lens of Food Studies. Students will learn what Food Studies is, how to read Food Studies scholarship, and how (and why) to practice Food studies, i.e. apply the lens of Food Studies scholarship to topics or issues they care about, and to everyday life. More specifically, the class will explore the dance between agency and structure that shapes food systems, habits, and experiences – attending to the ideological and material structures and the individual and collective agency, resistance and resilience that comprise foodways. Our exploration of these themes will take place, loosely, around questions about “good food” – what is the cultural role that ideas about good food and “eating right” play? How do intersections of race and space impact how good food is accessed? What happens when we think beyond the “food desert” metaphor and concept? How and why has grocery shopping become a means of navigate concerns about environmental toxins, and what do class and gender have to do with it? We will end the quarter by looking back at some of the trouble spots we have uncovered, using our critical and creative capacities to “imagine otherwise.”
New Food Product Ideas | Food Science and Technology 159
This course focuses on the “fuzzy front end” of new product development, which requires qualitative research method aimed at understanding the social and cultural contexts of food choice, and how these inform the wants and needs that drive behavior and food choice. Students will act as researchers throughout the course, engaging in projects that help them to develop creative, relevant product concepts that provide meaningful benefits.
Cultural Politics of Food and Health | American Studies 160
The central goal of this class is to introduce you to ways of thinking about health from a critical, cultural perspective. This entails stepping away from the usual, biomedical framework within which we usually discuss health, and learning to ask cultural questions instead. For example, instead of asking what causes obesity, we will be exploring the implications of different ways of answering that questions. Throughout the quarter we will think about how ideals of dietary health are both shaped by cultural and social factors and have significant social effects. This class aims to give you the tools to think, write and speak critically about nutrition and discourses of dietary health. I assume that you have had lots of exposure to mainstream ways of talking about nutrition, dietary advice, “good food,” and obesity. Rather than reiterating these views, the class will expose you to critical perspectives and alternative views. You will not only read and discuss scholarly articles on these topics but also practice using them to explain, interpret, and critique the world of dietary ideals that surrounds you.
Design Thinking For Food | Food Science and Technology 298
This course, co-taught with Dr. Lauren Shimek, seeks to develop a new generation of food system innovators who know how to work in radically multidisciplinary teams and can combine technical expertise with sensitivity to the human needs and social and cultural dynamics that shape the food system. Working in teams, students from across campus learn and apply the tools of both Design Thinking (design research, synthesis, brainstorming, prototyping, storytelling) and Food Studies (understanding food within social and cultural contexts). The current class project focuses on reducing food waste in institutional settings, with a focus on the UCD dining commons. The class culminates with a public event in which students present their proposals and received feedback from a panel of both experts in food system innovation and dining commons staff. This project is funded with the support of the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health. A profile of the class can be found here.
Biltekoff’s teaching prioritizes active learning (even in large classes), equity, and three types of connections: between learners and course content, among learners, and between learners and herself. She sees each of these priorities as in the service of the others. Her teaching is also driven by commitment to interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity and collaboration. She supports students in embracing the productive discomfort that can arise from all of these.
COURSES TAUGHT
Food in American Culture | American Studies/Food Science and Technology 55
This course is about why we eat what, and how, we do. Together we will ask a lot of questions about American eating habits: Why is it so important for families and communities to come together at the table? Is cooking an expression of creativity and power for women, or a sign of their oppression? Are we really what we eat? Should we love or loathe convenience foods? What kind of role should responsibility play in our choices about what to eat? What should the future of food look like? We will use many disciplines (history, sociology, anthropology, consumer research) and analyze many different kinds of texts (images, TV shows, films, newspaper articles). Students learn basic vocabulary and concepts for analyzing American eating habits and develop an understanding of the three main influences on American eating habits (identity, convenience and responsibility) as well as the tensions that arise between them. They also learn about some of the central debates that shape current thinking about food in American culture and practice articulating their own informed opinions on those debates.
Food, Science and Society | American Studies 101c
This small, very interactive seminar will examine big questions about the relationship between food, science, and society. We will explore a range of familiar but controversial topics at the intersection of food and science: processed food, natural claims, GMOs, alternative proteins, cell cultured meat and more. We won’t answer the question of whether you should eat, or worry about, any of these things. We will develop analytical tools for understanding these controversies as part of larger debates about the role of science and technology in the food system, the role of scientific authority in food politics, the relationship between science and society, and the future of food.
Eating in America | American Studies 155
This class offers students an active learning experience through which they will learn to think through the lens of Food Studies. Students will learn what Food Studies is, how to read Food Studies scholarship, and how (and why) to practice Food studies, i.e. apply the lens of Food Studies scholarship to topics or issues they care about, and to everyday life. More specifically, the class will explore the dance between agency and structure that shapes food systems, habits, and experiences – attending to the ideological and material structures and the individual and collective agency, resistance and resilience that comprise foodways. Our exploration of these themes will take place, loosely, around questions about “good food” – what is the cultural role that ideas about good food and “eating right” play? How do intersections of race and space impact how good food is accessed? What happens when we think beyond the “food desert” metaphor and concept? How and why has grocery shopping become a means of navigate concerns about environmental toxins, and what do class and gender have to do with it? We will end the quarter by looking back at some of the trouble spots we have uncovered, using our critical and creative capacities to “imagine otherwise.”
New Food Product Ideas | Food Science and Technology 159
This course focuses on the “fuzzy front end” of new product development, which requires qualitative research method aimed at understanding the social and cultural contexts of food choice, and how these inform the wants and needs that drive behavior and food choice. Students will act as researchers throughout the course, engaging in projects that help them to develop creative, relevant product concepts that provide meaningful benefits.
Cultural Politics of Food and Health | American Studies 160
The central goal of this class is to introduce you to ways of thinking about health from a critical, cultural perspective. This entails stepping away from the usual, biomedical framework within which we usually discuss health, and learning to ask cultural questions instead. For example, instead of asking what causes obesity, we will be exploring the implications of different ways of answering that questions. Throughout the quarter we will think about how ideals of dietary health are both shaped by cultural and social factors and have significant social effects. This class aims to give you the tools to think, write and speak critically about nutrition and discourses of dietary health. I assume that you have had lots of exposure to mainstream ways of talking about nutrition, dietary advice, “good food,” and obesity. Rather than reiterating these views, the class will expose you to critical perspectives and alternative views. You will not only read and discuss scholarly articles on these topics but also practice using them to explain, interpret, and critique the world of dietary ideals that surrounds you.
Design Thinking For Food | Food Science and Technology 298
This course, co-taught with Dr. Lauren Shimek, seeks to develop a new generation of food system innovators who know how to work in radically multidisciplinary teams and can combine technical expertise with sensitivity to the human needs and social and cultural dynamics that shape the food system. Working in teams, students from across campus learn and apply the tools of both Design Thinking (design research, synthesis, brainstorming, prototyping, storytelling) and Food Studies (understanding food within social and cultural contexts). The current class project focuses on reducing food waste in institutional settings, with a focus on the UCD dining commons. The class culminates with a public event in which students present their proposals and received feedback from a panel of both experts in food system innovation and dining commons staff. This project is funded with the support of the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health. A profile of the class can be found here.