Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - 2025 CAAR Conference

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. Shanté Paradigm Smalls, PhD (*They, Them, Theirs*) is Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Art & Public Policy at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. They are the author of the award-winning book, *Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City* (NYU Press, 2022).

They are currently working on a book on Harriet Tubman that explores ritual, geography, and visual culture, as well as working on a book on Black Futurism across genres and media.

For more, see their website: https://shanteparadigm.com/

Title of their talk: "Black Deaths Matter: Place, Dance, and Rebellion in NYC and LA"