Biography
Allison Truitt is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and is also the director of Asian Studies in the School of Liberal Arts. Currently, she is researching the relationship between religion and food in the gulf south region.
Research
The Relationship Between Religion and Food in the Gulf South Region
In Fall 2020, Truitt revised an upper level Spring 2021 course for Tulane undergraduates called “Global Vietnam” in two significant ways. First, she developed a new unit on the Vietnamese soup, phở, and second, she designed a new service-learning project based on Vietnamese restaurants in New Orleans.
Taking a deeper look at the Vietnamese soup phở in Truitt’s “Global Vietnam” course, students had the opportunity to look closely at an example of “commodity Orientalism,” and “American Orientalism.” Students then broke into groups to explore two different facets of the topic—the first was the history of phở in Vietnam, and the second was ethnic restaurants in the United States. They closed this addition to the course with a written assignment. Another update to this course was the service-learning component that supported student interactions with local Vietnamese restaurants. The idea for this project was first developed by Bridget Smith and Tran Nguyen-Phuong, president of Tulane Vietnamese Association in early fall. Throughout the semester, students in Truitt’s course researched four Vietnamese restaurants in the city, interviewed the owners, ate at their restaurants, and wrote essays about the restaurants for publication in Via Nola Vie.
In addition to updating her spring course, Truitt also developed a new course for Fall 2021, ANTHRO 3097 “Buddhism in America.” This course will have a module that explores the role of food and faith with an emphasis on Vietnamese vegetarian cooking traditions. With funding from the Fellowship, students will attend Buddhist services and festivals in order to see the role of food and faith in these communities. Truitt is teaching Buddhism in America in Spring 2023, with a focus on research opportunities for undergraduate students that engage Asian culinary traditions in the Gulf South.
