Julie Guthman

Julie Guthman received her PhD in geography at the University of California at Berkeley. (A little known fact is that she also received an MBA from Berkeley). She is currently a professor of social sciences at the University of California at Santa Cruz where she teaches courses primarily in global political economy and the politics of food and agriculture. Professor Guthman has published extensively on contemporary efforts to transform how food is produced, distributed, and consumed, with a particular focus on voluntary food labels, community food security, farm-to-school programs, and the race, class and body politics of “alternative food.” She is best known for challenging the taken-for-granted approaches of the food movements, with such provocative titles such as “How Michael Pollan made me want to eat Cheetos”, first published in the journal Gastronomica and then re-published in the Utne Reader. Her publications also include two multi-award winning books: Agrarian Dreams: the Paradox of Organic Farming in California, now out in its second edition, and Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism. She is the recipient of the 2015 Excellence in Research Award from the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society. Her current research is examining how California’s strawberry industry is contending with tighter regulatory restrictions on soil fumigants.