We are so familiar with these three hot drinks but they became commodities and part of our everyday only recently. This course explores what values were attached to these plants before the era of industrialized production, i.e. before ca. 1800. We will survey how Westerners adopted these beverages by looking at medical theories, the issue of morality, and the expansion of sugar production. We will also study how the craving for these products reinforced or even spurred slavery in French, Dutch, and English colonies. Special attention is dedicated to how ritual behavior affects design in terms of the sociability around these beverages, required manners, and the tableware crafted for them. The methodology is based on the analysis of images, discussions of assigned readings, written responses, visits to museums (RISD and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), and touring the facility of a chocolate artisan.

Elective

In 1400-1800 Europe, processions were ubiquitous and frequent. A whole city or single parties would take to the streets, marching in unison for multiple reasons. Such collective actions were often part of rites of passage for royals (birth, marriage, coronation, or death) but also marked commoners' lives with funerals or carnival. They could commemorate a saint's feast day, stage relic transfers, or celebrate the visit of a ruler or a dignitary to a city (the so-called triumphant entries). This course explores the performative aspects of such events, from their logistics (preparations, space, timing) to the part played by art and design. How were bodies disciplined and groups kept together? What was carried along and to what physical or emotional effects? Questions of group identity emerge; the distinction of actors/spectators blurs; religion and politics interweave; and the senses dominate. We will decode images of such ephemeral spectacles in, notably, paintings, individual prints, and festive books; and analyze processional objects, whether extant or not, highlighting the importance of their materiality and symbolism. Embodied experience is planned through a series of theatre exercises.

Elective

Chocolate started as a spicy, red-colored, Mesoamerican beverage and morphed into the sweet version created by Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries until mechanization and industrialization launched it in the form of edible bars in the 19th century. This course examines this history through the lens of the visual and material culture of chocolate from the 16th to the 21st centuries. We will discuss the elite's taste for exotic goods in pre-industrial times, the impact of colonialism and global trading networks, Europeans' craving for sugar, drinking rituals, and issues of race. We will work on critically assessing images and objects, deconstructing, for example, the image of chocolate in past or current commercials or reflecting on the erasure of labor in artistic representations. We will trace associations of pleasure, eroticism, the female gender, and racialization while looking at the space and the equipment designed for the performance of chocolate consumption in different cultures. This course also has a strong sensory and ethical dimension. Students will make, from scratch and by hand, the kind of chocolate found in pre-industrial times, processing beans into a cacao paste to be whisked into hot water or milk. To this embodied experience of harsh labor, a tasting session will teach students how to distinguish low- from high-quality chocolate bars. Finally, students will communicate with professional companies to learn about responsible development in the chocolate world today.

Elective