Psyche A Williams-Forson
Professor and Chair, American Studies
pwforson@umd.edu
1328E Tawes Hall
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Education
Ph.D., American Studies, UMD, College Park
Certificate, Women's Studies, UMD, College Park
M.A., American Studies, UMD, College Park
B.A., English/African American Studies, Women’s Studies, University of Virginia
Research Expertise
African American/African Diaspora
Everyday Life
Food Studies
Gender
Material Culture
Museum Studies
Performance Studies
Race/Ethnicity
Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson is professor and chair of the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. She is author of Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America (winner of the James Beard Media Award for Food Issues and Advocacy, 2023); co-editor of Taking Food Public: Redefining Food in a Changing World (2013); and, Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (winner of the Elli Köngäs-Maranda Prize, American Folklore Society). She is known nationally and internationally for her work in building the scholarly subfield of Black food studies, and she has published numerous articles on topics such as Black women, food, and power; food and literature; food and sustainability; race, food, and design thinking; eating and workplace cultures; as well as the historical legacies of race and gender (mis)representation, with (and without) food. She has also been interviewed on numerous podcasts, in several news articles, and for documentaries, including Al Roker's "Family Style" (NBC Today), Netflix’s "Ugly Delicious," and The Invisible Vegan. Dr. Williams-Forson is an affiliate faculty member of the Theatre, Dance, and Performing Studies, 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.
Select Publications:
- Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America UNC Press, 2022 - 2023 James Beard Foundation Award Winner - Food Issues and Advocacy
- Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World. Routledge, 2013.
- Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power. UNC Press, 2006.
- “Finding the Hidden Potential in Workplace Eating.” THRUUE. 2021.
- “In ‘Trouble’ with(out) Culture: Food Shaming and African American Foodways.” Spectra (Magazine of the National Communication Association). September 2019. 20 – 25.
- “Food as Hieroglyphics: Amiri Baraka and Black Expressive Culture.” Journal of American Studies of Turkey. 51 (2019): 43-48.
- “Black Lives Matter, Even in Food Justice.” Food, Fatness, Fitness Blog. http://foodfatnessfitness.com/author/psyche-williams-forson/ - Germany: Erfurt University. 2016.
- “ ‘I Haven’t Eaten If I Don’t Have My Soup and Fufu’”: Cultural Preservation through Food and Foodways among Ghanaian Migrants in the United States.” Africa Today 61.1 (2014): 69-87
- Focus Essay - “Who’s in the Kitchen with Dinah? Intersectionality and Food Studies.” Food, Culture, and Society 14.1 (March 2011): 7-16.
Courses
- AMST418G - Food, Trauma, Sustainability (Course awarded by the UMD Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship for using design thinking methodology)
- AMST498W – Black Class: From the Harlem Renaissance to Hip Hop
- AMST629D – Race, Class, Material Culture – Spring 2018
- AMST628D – Feminist Cultural Criticism of Diasporic Texts
- AMST698 – Directed Readings – Food Studies
Publications
Eating While Black
In "Eating While Black," Psyche A. Williams-Forson explores how anti-Black racism shapes food culture, revealing the deep-seated biases that dictate what is deemed “healthful” or “correct” to eat.
Author/Lead: Psyche A Willi…
Psyche A. Williams-Forson is one of our leading thinkers about food in America. In Eating While Black, she offers her knowledge and experience to illuminate how anti-Black racism operates in the practice and culture of eating. She shows how mass media, nutrition science, economics, and public policy drive entrenched opinions among both Black and non-Black Americans about what is healthful and right to eat. Distorted views of how and what Black people eat are pervasive, bolstering the belief that they must be corrected and regulated. What is at stake is nothing less than whether Americans can learn to embrace nonracist understandings and practices in relation to food.
Sustainable culture—what keeps a community alive and thriving—is essential to Black peoples' fight for access and equity, and food is central to this fight. Starkly exposing the rampant shaming and policing around how Black people eat, Williams-Forson contemplates food's role in cultural transmission, belonging, homemaking, and survival. Black people's relationships to food have historically been connected to extreme forms of control and scarcity—as well as to stunning creativity and ingenuity. In advancing dialogue about eating and race, this book urges us to think and talk about food in new ways in order to improve American society on both personal and structural levels.