James Beard Award-winning author and professor delivers Ridington Lecture
Psyche Williams-Forson, a culinary historian and author of “Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America,” winner of the 2023 James Beard Foundation Book Award, speaks at McDaniel College’s annual Ridington Lecture on Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m., in McDaniel Hall's Coley Rice Lounge. The lecture, titled “Food, Food Everywhere – From Vexed Conversations to Food Shaming,” is free and open to the public.
Psyche Williams-Forson, James Beard Award-winning author and professor and department chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, speaks at McDaniel College’s annual Ridington Lecture on Tuesday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m., in McDaniel Hall's Coley Rice Lounge. The lecture is free and open to the public.
A culinary historian and author of “Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America,” winner of the 2023 James Beard Foundation Book Award, her presentation is titled “Food, Food Everywhere – From Vexed Conversations to Food Shaming.”
Williams-Forson is also the author of "Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power,” which won the Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize from the American Folklore Society. She co-edited “Taking Food Public: Redefining Food in a Changing World” and has written various academic articles and essays on Black food studies, material, and domestic culture. You can hear more about Professor Williams-Forson’s work on podcasts, YouTube, and documentaries such as Netflix’s “Ugly Delicious”; “The Invisible Vegan”; and Al Roker’s “Family Style — Civil Rights and Restaurants” from MSNBC.
She speaks on Black women, food, and power; food and literature; food and sustainability; race, food, and design thinking; eating and workplace cultures; Juneteenth, public history; and race and gender (mis)representation, with (and without) food.
Currently a professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and affiliate faculty of Theatre, Dance, and Performing Studies and the departments of African American Studies, Anthropology, The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, Williams-Forson taught as an assistant professor of English at McDaniel College from 2000-05.
Edith Farr Ridington and
William Robbins Ridington
She holds a Ph.D. and master's degree in American Studies and a certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has a bachelor's degree in English/African American Studies and Women’s Studies from the University of Virginia.
The annual Ridington lecture honors two long-time teachers at McDaniel, William Robbins Ridington and Edith Farr Ridington. After the Ridingtons’ deaths, their family endowed this annual lectureship, which began in 1991. For more information about the Ridington Lecture, call 410-857-2410.
Requests for ASL interpreters are welcome and should be made as soon as possible (two weeks prior to the event preferred) by contacting the specific event organizer. Other accommodation requests and questions can be directed to Conference Services at 410-857-2407.
