WMU HOME > ABOUT WMU > WMU NEWS Visiting scholar connects globalization and food Oct. 13, 2004 KALAMAZOO--Anthropologist Sidney Mintz, William L. Straus Jr. professor emeritus of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, will present a free public lecture on "Food and History: How Many Globalizations?" at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 14, in Room 2304 of Sangren Hall at Western Michigan University. The talk will describe how the worldwide dispersal of the potato, maize, tea, sugar and other foods led to globalization centuries before such modern inventions as air transportation and mass marketing. A reception will follow the presentation, which is sponsored by WMU's Visiting Scholars and Artists Program. Mintz, who has done research on the Caribbean for more than 50 years, is the foremost expert on the scholarly study of food and has been a seminal figure in fusing the fields of anthropology and history in order to better understand the global system. He founded the anthropology department at Johns Hopkins and helped create the Afro-American Studies Program at Yale University. For more information, call Dr. Jon Holtzman, assistant professor of anthropology, at (269) 387-3967. Media contact: Cheryl Roland, 269 387-8400, cheryl.roland@wmich.edu WMU News Office of University Relations Western Michigan University 1903 W Michigan Ave Kalamazoo MI 49008-5433 USA 269 387-8400 www.wmich.edu/wmu/news