About Us
Christy working from her Paris home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christy Shields-Argelès
Christy is a food anthropologist and Associate Professor in the Global Communications Department of The American University of Paris. She especially loves working on collaborative projects. Some of her favorites include: the Comte Cheese Practicum (2010-2020), with taste educator Claire Perrot, Comté cheese producers and AUP students; the Food without Borders project (2017-2018), with filmmaker Beth Grannis, Maurice Ravel Junior High School and AUP students, and Salé et Sucré (Salty and Sweet), a cookbook project involving recipes, storytelling and print art with artists Laurence Geoffroy and Vania Nikolcic and incarcerated men and women of the Centre pénitentiaire Sud Francilien de Réau, France (2019-2020).
Christy contributes anthropological ideas and methods to all of these educational projects with a focus on empowering individuals as well as building spaces of a dialogue and mutual understanding.
Christy’s Madeleine | Banana bread with butter (from my native American Midwest) and Comté cheese (from my adopted French homeland, and especially the Jura mountains).
Beth Grannis
Beth’s background in documentary filmmaking, participatory filmmaking, and international outreach has fostered a curiosity for cross-cultural collaboration. Her co-founded nonprofit, Filmmakers without Borders, is an educational arts organization dedicated to emboldening the next generation of digital storytellers using the power of filmmaking, throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
With developed pedagogical lessons centered around participatory filmmaking and involving artistic collaboration at a community level, Beth has taught and facilitated the digital storytelling process for students around the globe; Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and Honduras to name a few. She and her team have also collaborated with the World Bank, traveling to Pakistan and Maldives to run youth engagement workshops focussing on documentary filmmaking.
These experiences led her to pursue a MA in Global Communications at the American University of Paris. With a focus in food anthropology and filmmaking, she and Professor Christy Shields developed Food without Borders, presenting the project at conferences internationally and later growing the venture into Madeleine Shorts. With a passion for storytelling and exploring the ways in which the culture of food has the power to create positive changes within communities, Beth continues to seek out ways to share food-experiences with the world.
Beth’s Madeleine | Blueberry Pancakes
Presentations
Christy Shields, Anne Luneau (teacher, Ravel school) and Caroline Schneider (teacher, Ravel school). “Food without Borders/Nourriture sans Frontières” (Key note address for orientation week for English and Food Studies students), The University of Bordeaux-Agen, September 30, 2019.
Christy Shields and Beth Grannis. “Food without Borders : A Civic Media and Participatory Ethnographic Film Project”, The First Annual Food and Communications Conference, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, September 6-7, 2018.
Christy Shields, Beth Grannis, and AUP student mentors Mateo Galindo, Maria Sarmiento and Thomas Lopez. Presentation and screening of the “Food without Borders” project, AUP-Teaching and Learning Center, November 7, 2018.
Christy Shields Beth Grannis, and AUP student-mentors Mateo Galindo, Lauren Green, Max Johnson and Thomas Lopez. Presentation and screening of the “Food without Borders” project, The American University of Paris, March 29, 2018.
Christy Shields, Beth Grannis, Anne Luneau and the 6th grade class from Maurice Ravel School. Presentation and screening of the film “Food without Borders”, “Premier Festival des Arts de la Scène et du Goût” at the Scène et Table de Thélème, organized in partnership with the French Ministry of Education, March 20, 2018.
Christy Shields, Beth Grannis, AUP student mentor team (Mateo Galindo, Lauren Green, Max Johnson, Thomas Lopez, Emma Saito, Maria Sarmiento), Ravel teachers (Isabelle Dupuis, Anne Luneau, Caroline Schneider) and 6th grade students. Presentation, screening and celebration of the films “The Making of” and “Food without Borders”, Ravel Junior High School, February 9, 2018
Christy Shields, Claire Perrot (taste educator, Comté cheese), Beth Grannis and Sam McKeown (MAGC student). “Ethnography and Taste Education in Cooperation with Comté Cheese: A Cross-Cultural and Collaborative Approach to Food Pedagogy and Taste Learning”, Creative Tastebuds: A “Taste for Life” Collaboration, Aarhus, Denmark, September 4-5, 2017.
In September of 2017, Sam McKeown. Christy Shields-Argelès, Claire Perrot and Beth Grannis at the Creative Tastebuds conference in Aarhus, Denmark.