Guest speaker to discuss pianos in African American material culture

1:40 p.m., Feb. 22, 2016--The University of Delaware’s Center for Material Culture Studies will present a talk by Psyche Williams-Forson of the University of Maryland at 4 p.m., Tuesday, March 1, as the inaugural event in the new African American Material Culture and Public History Speaker series. 

The lecture, titled “How Sweet the Sound: African American Performances of Class and Citizenship Using the Piano,” is free and open to the public and will be held in the Reading Room of Morris Library.

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University of Delaware graduates planning to attend Alumni Weekend are encouraged to register for the annual Blue Hen 5K walk and run, which will be held Sunday morning, June 5.

June 6-9: Food and culture series

The 20th annual June Lecture Series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UD in Wilmington will be held June 6-9. Titled 'June a la Carte,' this year's program focuses on great political documents, feminism, world politics and a Newark cuisine sampler.

• June 6-9: Food and culture series
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• Through Sept. 16: Women of color in academia

Williams-Forson is an internationally renowned scholar and author of the award-winning Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power. She is a professor and chair of American Studies, affiliate professor of Women’s Studies and African American Studies, and sits as a member of the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity at the University of Maryland.

Her lecture at UD derives from a project in which she analyzed African American material and class culture. 

Williams-Forson will discuss the role of pianos in African American homes and how African American women were able to use the piano on a quest to combat generalizations from white society and overcome interracial class disparities. She will present the argument that materialism among African Americans was critical to the fulfillment of citizenship and equality.