Psyche Williams-Forson

Forson posterUniversity of Maryland College Park

Eating While Black: A Case Study on Food Shaming and Policing

Monday, October 10, 2016
Allison Great Hall, 7 p.m.

This talk will examine how the current changing food world affects and is affected by African American people. In particular, it will focus on how the legacies of surveillance that surround black people have now extended to our food cultures.

This program is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, the Departments of Africana Studies, American Studies, Anthropology & Archaeology, English, Environmental Studies and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies. It is also part of the Clarke Forum’s semester theme, Food.

Biography (provided by the speaker)Psyche

Psyche Williams-Forson is associate professor and chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. She is an affiliate faculty member of the women’s studies and African American studies departments, as well as anthropology/archaeology. She is an associate editor of Food and Foodways journal, co-editor (with Carole Counihan) of Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World (Routledge 2011) and author of Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (2006).  Her new book focuses on food shaming and food policing in Black communities. Dr. Williams-Forson is also the recipient of numerous fellowships including a Smithsonian Museum Senior Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Diversity Fellowship, and a Winterthur Museum and Library Fellowship.

Related Link
Race, class, and the Fine Line Between Food Instruction and Food Policing

Video of the Lecture