By Jonathan Morales

2023年3月15日

历史学家研究食物的原因有很多，但迈克尔·柯林斯（Michael Collins）特别喜欢挑一个。

“It speaks to the importance of the daily lives of common people,” said Collins, a 萨克拉门托 State lecturer of History. “It’s not just about military leaders, or political leaders, or the great figures in history. … Everybody needs to eat.”

这学期，柯林斯教授了一门新课程，研究食物在过去五个世纪的人类历史中所扮演的重要角色。

The class, “A Global History of Food, 1500 to the Present,” has proven to be popular. 它让学生从一个独特的角度学习历史，并审视自己的文化背景。

“The first and most important thing on my mind was to be able to reach out to … a broad student audience, to help them become aware of how important food has been in history, and how important food has been in their lives,” Collins said.

他是一名世界历史学家，特别关注殖民主义和权力体系，这是他开设这门课程的一个关键原因。

“The more I researched British colonialism, the more I found that food supply issues and issues of starvation and scarcity were really important, but neglected,” he said.

Collins said that the History department has worked to develop courses that reflect the world’s diversity and engage students with their own identities.

这门全在线课程的需求很高，目前已有118名学生注册。 在调查了其他学生后，柯林斯选择远程授课，并了解到许多人更喜欢在线课程的灵活性。

The course began with lessons on the “Columbian Exchange,” the massive transfer of food and other goods between the New and Old Worlds that started a new era of colonialism.

Students recently learned about food’s role in revolutionary movements and nation building, such as the annual celebratory consumption of Haitian pumpkin soup. 在海地被奴役的非洲人被禁止吃这道菜，它后来成为他们反殖民抵抗的象征和海地文化的重要组成部分。

课程结束时将讲授现代食品问题，如可持续性、全球化和食品不安全。

学生们还将分析历史上的食谱，研究并提交反映他们自己的文化和历史成长的家庭食谱。

“There are so many of them that come from diverse backgrounds, different people from different class backgrounds, racial and ethnic groups, and I wanted to be able to help students understand that they have a place in history and their approach to food has a place in history,” Collins said.

The class has strong connections to both 囊状态’s antiracism and inclusion work and its Anchor University initiative to build and strengthen relationships with the community.

在开发这门课程的过程中，柯林斯寻求学生和其他人的反馈，尤其是来自代表性不足的少数群体的人，他们认为历史课堂上没有经常提到的话题和问题。

 

“Having more of those kinds of interests and concerns (included) really speaks to a broader restructuring of the ways in which we build our curriculum at 囊状态,” Collins said.

他还在课程建设方面向社区寻求帮助，咨询了萨克拉门托商会（萨克拉门托 Chamber of Commerce）、全食基金会（Whole Foods Foundation）等机构的成员，探讨这样的课程如何帮助学生为职业做好准备。

In addition to the online element, Jalen Withrow, a junior studying Criminal Justice, was attracted to the class because “it would be something interesting to talk about, (and) not something talked about in regular history classes.”

The son of a white father and Black mother, Withrow said he had not thought much about his family’s food history, but that the class, and its family recipe assignment, will provide an opportunity to change that.

“My grandma on my mother's side knows a bit more than my mother does. She's from Louisiana, and she always has her own little recipes she likes to make during certain times of the year,” he said. “So, I'm thinking I'll go to her. She always makes these different types of seafood dishes with crab, lobster, different kinds of meat.”

由于这门课程是低年级的，对非历史专业的学生开放，柯林斯与同伴学术资源中心（PARC）合作，确保了一位补充指导负责人，历史系大四学生X Pasha，为学生提供额外的帮助和支持。

每周两次，帕夏通过Zoom举行一小时的小组活动和讨论，学生可以复习课程。

柯林斯说，他希望学生们能培养很强的写作和研究技能，但他也希望他们能更好地理解食物在塑造社会、文化和历史方面的力量。

“Food can affect politics, can affect culture, can affect broad-scale economic change,” he said. “It’s of pervasive importance.”