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Session 1 (Units 1-2): The Goodness of God: Critical Gastromusicology and Research Methods

Sat, Feb 03

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Zoom

Have you ever experienced food that makes you wanna sing? This expression is an aesthetic value at the core of African-American gastromusicology (music & foodways). This course comprises live & recorded courses that cover 8 units of critical gastromusicology. Manual included. (Details below)

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Session 1 (Units 1-2):  The Goodness of God: Critical Gastromusicology and Research Methods
Session 1 (Units 1-2):  The Goodness of God: Critical Gastromusicology and Research Methods

Time & Location

Feb 03, 2024, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Zoom

About the Event

Seasoning: A Course in Gastromusicology

Shortly after the term “soul food” was popularized on the heels of the “soul music” genre, culinary anthropologist and Sun Ra touring musician Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor published the cookbook-memoir Vibration Cooking or The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl (1970). In the tradition of Zora Neale Hurston’s ethnographic research and Ms. Edna Lewis’ culinary culture-bearing, Vibration Cooking challenged the primacy of the “soul food” concept by centring on food as a source of pride, a site of sensuality, an art of multisensory storytelling, a validation of Black womanhood and Black consciousness-raising. Deeply rooted in her musical experiences, Smart-Grosvenor wrote, “When I cook, I never measure or weigh anything. I cook by vibration.” Through her cultural anthropological writing, she pinned an intersection of music/sound, sensuality, and culinary perception that has yet to be explored through the lens of music or sound studies.

Probing that constellation of soulful, musical, sensual, and culinary perception, the textbook Seasoning: A Course in Gastromusicology is a ground-breaking critical investigation into the interconnectedness of African American embodiment, oral transmission, cultural production, wealth extraction, and consumption in the global marketplace as emblematic of what I coin as gastromusicophysics or multisensory “taste.”  Highly competent culture-bearers in the marketplace that I call “ultrasonic tastemakers” resonate with and register their talent, tapping into high vibrations, and frequencies of creative expressions, decision making and influencing what is, will be, and their products endure as en vogue, succulent, and mellifluous.

Units Covered

Unit 1 -- Basic Gastromusicology Research Methods   

Unit 2 -- GOODNESS: An Introduction to Critical Gastromusicology    

Unit 3 -- The Vagina Dentata: The Unutterable Confluence of Diet, Discordance, and Black Sexual Purity in Gospel Music.   

Unit 4 -- On Soundness, Despite Seasoning: Tortured Lullabies as Work Songs 

Unit 5 -- The Sound of Wise Women: The Poetics of Smoky Sizzling Inventiveness and Preservation in Kitchen Beauty Salons  

Unit 6 -- “I Don’t Want No Peanut Butter and Jelly”: Indulgence Management and the Loss of Appetite for the “Wrong Food”       

Unit 7 --  Global Tastemakers: Touring Musicians Cooking Food that Makes You Want to Sing  

Unit 8 -- COMMUNION: “Bad Blood” Stigmata and Remembrance

Session Dates:

*All Sessions are First Saturdays from 10 am - Noon 

**Sesssion 1: Units 1 and 2 **

3 Feb, 2024 

Session 2: Units 3 and 4 

2 March, 2024

Session 3:  Units 4 and 5

6 April

Session4: Units 6 and 7 

4 May 

Session 5:  Unit 8 

1 June 

Fee Schedule 

Session 1 (Units 1-2)** $150 Mandatory Session (Live and Recorded)

All Sessions Package: $772.10

Individual Sessions: $108.88

Tickets

  • Session 1 (Units 1-2)

    $150.00
    +$3.75 service fee
    Sale ended

Total

$0.00

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