Japanese Food, Culture and Writing: From Farm to Page
DialogueTokyo, Japan Ueda, Japan Bessho Onsen, Japan Kyoto, Japan Summer I, 2025
Courses
Offers an overview of how biology weaves its way across a broad spectrum of complex societal issues. Introduces students to the biological mechanisms and processes responsible for genetic inheritance, energy transfer, evolution, and population dynamics, providing a framework within which students may critically interpret and discuss important biological information provided in public forums. Seeks to empower students to make informed choices at the policy and personal levels. Offers students an opportunity to acquire an understanding of the basic principles of biology and apply the scientic process to the analysis of contemporary issues. This course uses the theme of Japanese food and food culture as a context in which to explore connections between biology and society.
Offers writers an opportunity to hone their skills in a workshop focused on a particular topic or form, such as advocacy writing, public policy writing, autobiography and memoir, rhetoric for writers, speculative ction, or screenwriting. This particular section will focus on food writing.
Japanese cuisine is widely recognized as one of the world’s great food cultures, and one of the most unique. Traditional Japanese food practices, known as washoku, have been designated an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Integral to washoku is the use of local, seasonal ingredients, treated with reverence and used to their fullest potential, a practice that links to sustainability and respect for nature, and a balance of complementary foods, which provides a pleasurable experience while also linking to nutrition. However, like all modern cuisines, Japanese food is an integration of traditional and modern, native and foreign, and many of the foods most associated with Japanese cuisine today are not from these old traditions but reflect more recent introductions. We will also consider how present day Japanese food has been shaped by the tumultuous history of Japan in the last 200 years, and how, despite great transformation, traditional views and practices are still honored and valued in Japanese food.
