New publication by Center for Food in Community and Culture
The two-volume collection Critical Food Issues: Problems and State-of-the-Art Solutions was just published by Praeger Publishing (Santa Barbara, Cal.).
Volume One, edited by Laurel Phoenix of the Public and Environmental Affairs faculty, has fifteen chapters focused on “Environment, Agriculture, and Health”; Volume Two, edited by Lynn Walter of Social Change and Development, has sixteen chapters focused on “Society, Culture, and Ethics.” Prof. Phoenix also contributed a chapter on “Water and Land-Use Policy in the United States,” and Prof. Walter on “Gender, Generations, and Commensality: Nurturing Home and the Commons.”
Among the contributors are several faculty members from UW-Green Bay’s Center for Food in Community and Culture: Joanne Gardner (Nutritional Sciences) on “Obesity”; Regan Gurung (Human Development) on “Cultural Differences in Food Preferences”; Aeron Haynie (Humanistic Studies) on “Images of Sustenance in Contemporary Literature”; Vicki Medland (Natural and Applied Sciences) on “Agrobiodiversity”; Debra Pearson (Human Biology and Nutritional Sciences) on “The Effects of Agricultural Practices on Nutrient Profiles of Foods”; Larry Smith (Social Change and Development) on “Food and Democracy”; and Sandra Stokes (Education) on “School Lunch and Breakfast Programs.”
Other regional contributors are: Cheryl Kalny, an adjunct faculty member in Social Change and Development who wrote the chapter on “Disordered Eating”; Daniel A. Cibulka, who just completed his master’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy at UW-Green Bay, wrote on “Sustainable Agricultural Development in the United States and other Postindustrial Countries”; Andrew Fiala, formerly a faculty member in Humanistic Studies now at California State University-Fresno, contributed a chapter on “Animal Welfare.” And, William Van Lopik, from the Sustainable Development Institute of College of Menominee Nation contributed a chapter on “Equity in Access to Land, Human Rights, and Capital: Food Security Movements from the Global South.”
In her endorsement of the volumes Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, wrote:
“Critical Food Issues is an extraordinary contribution to the emerging field of food studies. Its essay prove beyond doubt that food is a fascinating and worthwhile subject of academic inquiry and that the results of that inquiry are of overwhelming importance to individuals, as well as to society. The range and breadth of topics covered in this work make the connections between agriculture and culture, between food production and nutrition and health, abundantly clear. Anyone interested in food will find much to learn in the essays in these volumes. I intend to assign them to every class I teach.”
In their Preface to Critical Food Issues, Lynn Walter and Laurel Phoenix highlight the interdisciplinary nature of their work at the Center for Food in Community and Culture at UW-Green Bay noting that:
“The knowledge integration process has been institutionally supported by the fact that the editors and some of the contributors are faculty members at the Center for Food in Community and Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. The mission of the center is reflected in the central interdisciplinary problem-focus of this collection, which is to promote “interdisciplinary scholarship to enhance the synergy between sustainable food systems and a sound environment, healthy people, and equitable communities, locally and globally.” Its work is reinforced by the innovative, interdisciplinary structure of the University’s mission, in which the faculty is encouraged to cross the traditional boundaries of knowledge within the broad frameworks of ecology and engaged citizenship.”
