REL 205 Religious Identity Through Food
Food has been utilized to create religious identity, create borders between religions, as well as break down and traverse borders between religions. This course will examine how food and food preparation has shaped religious identity and created a sense of community throughout the centuries beginning in the common era. By examining kosher dietary restrictions in Judaism, halal edicts in Islam, and Christian concerns, this class will initially examine how food internally fomented identity as well as created issues amongst the Abrahamic traditions positively and negatively. This course intends to utilize a combination of class discussion, field-work, and "lab" work, in a sense, in order to deeply immerse the students in the topic at hand.