Psyche Williams-Forson, all video
Some of Prof. Williams-Forson’s research includes “Bet Your Bottom Dollar: The Politics of Consuming from Dollar/Discount Stores in a Changing Food World,” which explores the role of the value market as an immediate site of food acquisition and a project on class, consumption, and citizenship among African Americans by examining domestic interiors from the late nineteenth-century to the early twentieth-century. In this interview she talks about how she came to study food and African-American food culture, etiquette and the effect of memory on food habits.
March 4, 2011
*Professor Williams-Forson took part in How We Talk about Feeding the World, an interdisciplinary symposium held at the Institute for Advanced Study, March 3-5, 2011.
Table of Contents:
(0:05) STUDYING FOOD BACKROUND
FHA involvement (0:03)
Material Culture (1:00)
African American Novel and Food (1:40)
(2:30) AFRICAN-AMERICAN FOODWAYS
Studying the ‘why’ (2:45)
Talking to People (3:07)
(3:44) THE DIRECTION OF FOOD
Alternative-alternative food networks (4:03)
(4:38) KINDS OF RESEARCH
Two Problems (4:50)
Oral culture (4:58)
(6:35) HOW POWER OPERATES THROUGH OBJECTS
Vegetarian Dinner Party (7:15)
Class status and structure (8:30)
(9:10) RITUAL AND ETIQUETTE
Oprah Magazine (9:56)
Behavior (10:40)
Film Dinner Party (11:03)
(12:00) RECREATING MEALS
Knowledge of food etiquette (14:00)
(15:20) STRANGE FOODS IN MATERIAL CULTURE
Unfamiliar foods (16:02)
Trying new foods (17:30)
Annie Hall reference to food (18:23)
(19:00) CLASS, RACE RELATIONSHIPS WITH FOOD
Food Memories (19:52)
Food Restrictions and exotic tastes (21:30)
(24:10) SOUL FOOD
The history (24:25)
Cultural identity (25:20)
Sunday Dinner (25:55)
(26:52) DEFINING A MEAL
Family structure and time (27:53)
Unacceptable foods for Sunday dinner (28:18)
What needs to be included? (28:50)
Festive Meals (29:40)
Scarcity (32:02)