“Food Media, Dudes, and Athletes: What Can They Teach Us about Food Literacy and Liberation?”

Emily Contois

Instagram posts. TikToks. Food TV shows. Cookbooks written for men. Dude food. Wheaties, protein shakes, and electrolyte-enhanced waters. How do these various foods and media shape who we are and think we can be, how we want to feel, and what we hope to look like? Are they good for us, or not? Drawing from her past published works and new research, Emily Contois will survey and analyze the messages our food media landscape sends us about our identities, bodies, and health. In this talk, she’ll seek a path for all of us toward greater food and media literacy, considering what it would take to reach liberation, and what stands in our way.

Food Literacy for All is a community-academic partnership course based at the University of Michigan. Structured as an evening lecture series, Food Literacy for All features different guest speakers each week to address challenges and opportunities of diverse food systems. Food Literacy for All is free and open to the public.

The winter 2022 course begins on Tuesday evening, January 11, 2022. If you have questions, please contact [email protected] or find more information here: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/sustainablefoodsystems/foodliteracyforall

Speaker schedule:
Jan 11: Margot Finn, Winona Bynum, Lilly Fink Shapiro
Jan 18: Emily Contois
Jan 25: Marilyn Wann and Chef Fresh
Feb 1: Fatima Stanford
Feb 8: Marcus Coleman and Angela Chalk
Feb 15: Priya Fielding-Singh
Feb 22: Hi’ilei Hobart
March 8: Deanna Belleny
March 15: Ashanté Reese and Malik Yakini
March 22: Savala Nolan
March 29: Small Grocer Panel
April 5: TBD
April 12: Fast Food for Thought
April 19: Final Food Literacy class

Food Literacy for All is hosted by the UM Sustainable Food Systems Initiative. The 2022 course is supported by the CEW+ Frances and Sydney Lewis Visiting Leaders Fund, the Residential College, the School of Public Health’s Department of Nutritional Sciences, the Taubman Institute, the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, the Department of American Culture, and the Department of Anthropology.