Curriculum Vitae & Courses
Sistah Soul Food
Course Description:
Upon entry into the U.S., black slave women introduced their African foodways into American culture as evidenced by the Gullah Geechee culture in the Carolinas. At the same time, slave women who were sold further inland lost much of their indigenous foodways and were forced to make do with the scraps (hog maws, fatback, pig ears, pig feet, chitterlings, etc.) from their owners.
In both cases, black slave women were central to the survival of black communities whether they were cooking in the kitchen in the big house, growing their own crops, controlling the poultry market, or prescribing herbs and tonics for healing through rootwork.
Through slave narratives, academic articles, and contemporary commercial memoirs we will trace the culinary agency of black women and examine our current state of affairs.
Rhetoric of Health and Wellness
Rhetoric of Health & Wellness seeks to bring together humanities and social scientific research traditions in a rhetorically focused journal to allow scholars to build new interdisciplinary theories, methodologies, and insights that can impact our understanding of health, illness, healing, and wellness.