IDS 201 FOOD, GENDER, AND POWER-THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY
This course will examine Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy, particularly focusing on the use and construction of food, gender, and power. We will practice close reading, analysis, and research skills to develop a rich understanding and nuanced interpretation of the three novels. In particular we are going to be looking at “innocuous” themes such as food, music, and games and how these themes can transmit powerful messages that confirm, or contest in the case of the Hunger Games trilogy, contemporary social norms in the U.S. The intent of the course is to discover how something such as pop culture fiction can help perceive, process, and envision possible changes to the world in which we currently live, for the author and readers alike. Counts toward Expression requirement (non-literature).