Updates from the Food Studies Program
Food Studies Program Leadership
The Food Studies Program has undergone a transition in leadership as longtime program Chair Dr. Bea Banu retired from the University this summer, and Dr. Kristin Reynolds has taken on the role of Chair of Food Studies and Visiting Assistant Professor in the program.
Kristin has been at The New School since 2010, first as Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Sustainable Urban Food Systems, and subsequently as a Part-Time Faculty member or Visiting Assistant Professor. Kristin’s research and scholarship focus on global social justice dynamics of the food system and food policy. Her current research examines two elements of these systems: urban agriculture in New York City and Paris; and small-scale grain farming, supply chains, and food sovereignty in Eastern France. Much of her work uses participatory or action research approaches, about which she has published in numerous scholarly journals and books and popular media, including Antipode, The Annals of the American Association of Geographers, and her 2016 co-authored book Beyond the Kale. As an educator, Kristin’s teaching centers on the food system, social- and environmental justice, and community-oriented research. She has been a visiting scholar at: Université Paris; the University of Southern Maine; the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique; and the European School of Political and Social Sciences at Université Catholique de Lille, France, where she is an external research associate. She is currently a Fulbright Specialist. She holds a Ph.D. in Geography and M.S. in International Agricultural Development from the University of California, Davis.
Kristin is enthusiastic about leading Food Studies beginning this fall, and working with diverse faculty, staff, students, and university leadership to strengthen this important and exciting program.
Curriculum
Food Studies continues to offer many excellent and diverse courses to students from across the university, including Food Studies majors concentrating in Food, Culture, Media, and Communications; Food, Health, Science and the Environment; Food Policy and Politics; or the Business of Food. Courses offered this fall include “Food and Migration;” “Alternative Food Networks;” “Food and the Environment;” “Food and Media;” and a new course “Umami Studies: Munching on Mushrooms – Meals, Medicine and Magic.” As has been the longstanding practice in Food Studies, students may choose among courses offered in-person or online, which provides flexibility for students with work and/or family commitments beyond their academic studies. Students may contact Food Studies Chair Dr. Kristin Reynolds or email foodstudies@newschool.edu for more information about the program.
Public Programming
The Food Studies Program hosted five successful online events in Spring 2021as part of the “Food and Power.” Events focused on culinary leaders Buwei Yang Chao, Cecilia Chiang, and Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor as part of the Program’s long-running Culinary Luminaries program; international and New York City food policy, and specifically the run-up to the United Nations Food Systems Summit, held in New York this September; and Black foodways in an author discussion of the 2021 book Black Food Matters (Garth, H. and Reese, A.M., eds., 2020, University of Minnesota Press). The events drew local and international audiences of between 100-300 to the live events and reached hundreds more through post-event videos.
Food Studies will host several online events in Fall 2021 in a series on ‘food and the public.’ More details will be posted on the university’s Events Calendar in coming weeks. You may also email foodstudies@newschool.edu for more information as it becomes available.