Jody Beck teaches landscape architecture and directs the PhD program in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado Denver. He completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. His first book, John Nolen and the Metropolitan Landscape focused on the politics underlying this John Nolen’s work. His article, “Food and Form-of-Life: A Philosophical Argument for Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture”, was recently published in Food Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal . Jody Beck has a forthcoming book chapter titled “Utopia landscape food utopia” in Routledge’s Handbook of Landscape and Food . In addition, he has just signed a book contract for a new project titled Landscape and Utopia.
Jody Beck grew up on a cattle ranch in rural Montana and left home for the city. His parents are constantly amused by his return to agricultural production as one center of his work. He has an appointment to the Colorado Food Systems Advisory Council, co-leads the Land Access Committee for the Colorado Food Policy Network and sits on that organization’s Leadership Council, and sits on the Land Access Committee of the Denver Sustainable Food Policy Council. In addition, Jody Beck is a member of the editorial team for the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development and a member of the Board of Directors and the Editorial Board for New Village Press.