Courses
Food and Culture
Food and Culture offers students a way to explore in-depth an area of anthropology that is growing in popularity but has been a part of the field since its inception.
Madeline Chera
I’m a community-engaged researcher focused on food and sustainable systems. I'm a Philly girl in the Midwest, by way of India. I love 🐩 🥭 🧘♀️ 🥜 🚶♀️ 🌄 😂 ♻.
Food Studies
BOOK REVIEW | Food Culture: Anthropology, Linguistics, and Food Studies
In this review article, I discuss the third volume in a comprehensive three-volume set about methods in interdisciplinary Food Studies research, considering how the book could be used effectively as a reference and guide for students.
Tamil Nadu
Our Drama, Our Food
Susan Seizer and I co-authored a paper using our two specialty foci to discuss the socio-linguistic significance of the inclusive "we" and "our" in Tamil culture.
Teaching
Teaching Awards
More than just a job, teaching is a vocation and is central to who I am. I have been fortunate to receive opportunities to grow as an educator and recognition for effective teaching in the past.
Gender
Country Chicken, Globalization and Discourse
I shared research on young women college students in Tamil Nadu and their views on global and local food systems at the Transecting Healthy and Sustainable Food in the Asia-Pacific Workshop, at Yale-National University of Singapore, in August 2018.
Outreach
Earth Eats Radio Show
My colleague Leigh Bush and I collaborated with current and former Earth Eats hosts and production staff to conduct interviews with Food Studies scholars and other food experts as guest segments. This NPR show is based at WFIU in Bloomington, IN.
Presentations
Our Madurai, Our Food
Multiple Ideologies in Local and Traditional Food Advocacy in Tamil Nadu, India
Tamil Nadu
Transforming Millets: Strategies and Struggles in Changing Taste in Madurai
Drawing on ethnographic evidence collected through field research in and around the city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, this paper explores how the particularities of Tamil history and cultural values shape the current confused status of millets there.
Anthropology
Fulbright
I received funding and support from the Fulbright program for the second part of my dissertation research in India, in the 2015-2016 round of fellowship competitions.
Anthropology
Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology
Equivalent in many ways to Culture and Society, this course was the introductory level offering for the cultural anthropology sub-field at the main campus (Rose Hill) of Fordham University in Fall 2015.
Presentations
Granny’s Legitimacy
> Exploring the Relationship Between Tamil Folk Dietetics and Nutrition Science Reference Chera, Madeline. 2015. "Granny's Legitimacy: Exploring the Relationship Between Tamil Folk Dietetics & Nutrition Science." Paper presented in "Nutritional Practices & Cultural Models of Health," Society for the Anthropology of Food &
Presentations
Between Meals and Meanings
> Notes on Snack Culture in South India Reference Chera, Madeline. 2015. “Between Meals and Meanings: Notes on Snack Culture in South India.” Paper presented in "Place, Consumption, and Health," at the Association for the Study of Food and Society and Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society joint