Psyche Williams-Forson Reads from Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs September 27, 2006

Chicken--both the bird and the food--has played multiple roles in the lives of African American women from the slavery era to the present. It has provided food and a source of income for their families, shaped a distinctive culture, and helped women define and exert themselves in racist and hostile environments. In her new book, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs, Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the "gospel bird." Williams-Forson is assistant professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. Cosponsored by the University of Maryland’s Department of American Studies.

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