Fall 2025 courses related to food systems
Each semester, faculty across Duke offer courses on topics connected to the food system. This makes it possible for students to customize their studies and incorporate their interest in food systems issues into their majors and certificate programs. We do not list Medical School or Nursing School courses, as these are restricted access to students enrolled in those programs.
Core and special topics in social stratification, including explanations for the existence, amount, and various dimensions of stratification in society; institutions that produce stratification; forces that cause the structure of stratification to vary both over time and across societies; and structures that govern social mobility within and across generations. Intergenerational mobility; social structure and the life course; social inequality and the structure of poverty; careers and labor markets; societal transformation; stratification and mobility research.
Bass Connections Year-long Project Team. Topics vary depending on semester and section. Teams of undergraduate and graduate students work with faculty to investigate how race intersects with various aspects of society and lived experience. Teams often work with external experts and partners. A team’s work may run in parallel with or contribute to an on-going research project. Teams will participate in seminars, data collection and analysis, field work and other learning experiences relevant to the project. Requires final paper or product containing significant analysis and interpretation. Instructor consent required.
Bass Connections Year-long Project Team. Topics vary depending on semester and section. Teams of undergraduate and graduate students work with faculty to investigate how race intersects with various aspects of society and lived experience. Teams often work with external experts and partners. A team’s work may run in parallel with or contribute to an ongoing research project. Teams will participate in seminars, data collection and analysis, field work and other learning experiences relevant to the project. Requires final paper or product containing significant analysis and interpretation. Instructor consent required.
Bass Connections Year-long Project Team. Topics vary depending on semester and section. Teams of undergraduate and graduate students work with faculty to investigate how race intersects with various aspects of society and lived experience. Teams often work with external experts and partners. A team’s work may run in parallel with or contribute to an on-going research project. Teams will participate in seminars, data collection and analysis, field work and other learning experiences relevant to the project. Requires final paper or product containing significant analysis and interpretation. Instructor consent required.
Overview of the different explanations for the economic development of nations in the long run and the differential patterns of distribution within them. Approach is global (what explains the dynamics of global inequality, the contrast between the developed and the developing world), historical (long term structural constraints and early institutional choices and their legacies), and analytical (theoretical identification of the mechanisms driving the wealth and poverty of nations, and the methodological strategies to approach them empirically).
Brief overview of basic concepts of nutrition. Curriculum includes dietary self-assessment, critical evaluation of popular diets, and examination, evaluation, and discussion of current trends in nutrition.
How diet affects well-being and reduces risk of certain diseases. Basic nutrition principles, sports performance enhancement, supplements, disordered eating, vegetarianism, herbs, diet and disease, and current trends in nutrition.
Globalization continuously shapes and reshapes our food systems. We benefit from international trade, yet we critique the system in which sustains us. Global value chains connect some of the world’s poorest farmers to the wealthiest consumers through products like cacao (chocolate), fish, and rice. This course will serve as an interdisciplinary approach to international trade of agriculture and food. Drawing from economics, sociology, and business and informed by ethics, this course will explore the reasons nations exchange goods and services, particularly food and agricultural products. The course will assess the implications of these exchanges on people and the planet, given the underlying profit motives. Learners will engage the private and public policy frames that support and shape globalized food systems.
Examines evolution of international development theory and practice since early 1950s. Investigates how different solutions advanced to deal with poverty have fared. Different streams of academic and policy literature, including economics, political science, and sociology, are consulted with a view to understanding what could have been done in the past and what should be done at the present time. Examines alternative formulations weekly in seminar format. Individual research papers (60% of grade) which analyze past and present development practices in a country of their choice, or examine trends within a particular sector (e.g., agriculture, population, gender relations, the environment).
Special topics course. Information about specific sections available in course synopsis. For more about House Courses, visit the following website: https://trinity.duke.edu/house-courses. Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory grading only.