COR3555 Foraging Wild Food and Medicine

Throughout history, we have relied on the natural world to meet our basic needs for food and medicine. However, this history often feels more and more removed from the way we currently live. Legacies of colonialism and genocide of native populations, marginalization of knowledge along gendered and racial lines, the spread of industrial agriculture, and the commodification of medicine and medical care are just a few of the cultural forces that have isolated us from foraging wild food and medicine. In this class, we’ll develop our individual relationships with the wild food and medicine all around us via mindful and sensory experiences, reading, journaling, discussion, and reflection on your experience of natural spaces and the non-human world. We’ll also learn to safely and ethically forage and prepare a few common plants and fungi for different purposes, and consider the cultural and ethical context for that knowledge. Open to students in the third or fourth year of study. This course is writing intensive.