The opening screening --- royal-kitchen politics, and the first pass at telling a drama's history from its invention
22 February 2027
Before the screening#
Watch the assigned episodes. Come with one scene in mind where food is doing more work than just being food — a meal that marks who outranks whom, or a punishment that runs through the kitchen rather than around it.
In the screening#
We open on the show’s premise, then work scene by scene through the food system it depicts: royal cuisine, medicine, and rank. Each pass asks the same two questions — what does this get right, and what does it invent — since those two turn out to be a template we reuse most weeks this semester.
Afterwards#
The distinction between “represented” and “dramatised” you practise here is the one your close-analysis essay later asks you to hold onto for a full argument, on a week of your choosing.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
- you have watched the assigned Jewel in the Palace episodes before arriving
- you can name one dish or kitchen ritual the episode uses to mark rank
- you can point to one moment that felt invented rather than recorded, and say why
Teaching team
- May Rhee — convenor