Psyche Williams-Forson
Food, culture and health are the themes that launch the 2013-14 Colloquium Series of the in . The opening event will feature foodways scholar Psyche Williams-Forson, who will present 鈥淒on鈥檛 Yuck My Yum: African American Communities and the Quandary of 鈥楨ating Healthy鈥欌€� on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 4 to 6:30 p.m. in the SU Bird Library, Graham Scholarly Commons (Room 114).
The event is free and open to the public; parking is available for $5 in SU鈥檚 Booth Garage. It is co-sponsored by SU鈥檚 and the in the .
Williams-Forson is vice president of the and an associate professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also an affiliate faculty member in Women’s Studies and African American Studies and the .
Her prize-winning book, “Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power” (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), reflects her interest in exploring food in cultural studies, material culture and women鈥檚 studies. 聽The American Folklore Society, which honored it with a 2006 prize, praised it as a 鈥渟uperior work on women鈥檚 traditional, vernacular, or local culture and/or feminist theory and folklore.鈥�
Williams-Forson is also co-editor, with Carole Counihan, of “Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World” (Routledge: 2011). She has also written numerous articles and book chapters on related issues of food, class and gender. She is also the curator of 鈥�,鈥� an online text and photo exhibition on the history of African American cookery for the Smithsonian Institution鈥檚 Anacostia Museum.
In an , Williams-Forson addresses the cultural history behind food. 鈥淲hy can’t we just eat our Chinese food or soul food in blissful ignorance, caring not about their origins or the historical characters that helped to inspire the foods on our plates?鈥� she asks.
Her answer mirrors a premise of her research: 鈥淏ecause, food is not solely a source of satiation and comfort,鈥� she writes. 鈥淔ood is a dynamic, tangible result of moments and movements of people throughout history that are and have been filled with tensions and contradictions. 鈥� Erasing the pasts of other cultures is willful ignorance and we should not be comfortable in this.鈥� Instead, Williams-Forson encourages us to learn about the history of the food we eat. If we do, 鈥渨e will find that we are ingesting new and intriguing life histories, experiences, and cuisines right in our own take-out boxes,鈥� she writes.
