Anthony Bourdain’s legacy won’t just live on via Parts Unknown reruns — now you can learn Bourdain’s work and creative process in a new course at Louisiana’s Nicholls State University. The course is being offered starting in spring 2019, as part of the school’s film studies program. The course’s teacher, Associate Professor Todd Kennedy, will focus on unpacking the literary and film references present in many of Bourdain’s programs.
Kennedy conceived of the course, called Anthony Bourdain and His Influencers, after hearing of Bourdain’s death. He told CNN that he “started thinking about the way Bourdain encapsulates so much of everything we do in film studies, in English studies, in cultural studies,” and was inspired to create a course around Bourdain’s cinematic themes and influences.
The course will examine a different episode each week from one of Bourdain’s TV series, and consider various movies or novels that may have influenced him. For example, the Rome episode of No Reservations was shot completely in black and white, reminiscent of Italian film icons such as Fellini, Bertolucci, and Antonioni.
If you want a head start on the syllabus, you should brush up on Bourdain’s popular Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and A.J. Liebling’s Between Meals: An Appetite of Paris, which is often considered to be one of Bourdain’s biggest influences.
To prep for the course, watching the final season of Parts Unknown is probably a good strategy. Its final season premiered on September 23rd.
H/T: Lonely Planet