Date: Thursday, October 8, 2026
Time: 7–8:30 P.M. EST
CE Credits: 1.5
Cost: $50.00
Where: Online, via Zoom
Photo credits: Kelly Marshall; Inkwell Haven
"From Marcel Proust's madeleine in Swann's Way to Anton Ego's ratatouille in the film of the same name, food proves time and again that it is a powerful conductor of memory. One bite takes us back to happy memories or sad times. With their conjoining of multiple senses—sight, smell, and, of course, taste—the most ordinary edibles become totems of the past."
Program Description
Have you ever had a taste of food that transported you back to a different time and place? Or sniffed an aroma that took you to your grandmother’s kitchen? Or compared a recipe for a favorite dish with a friend only to be surprised at how different the ingredients were?
Food can help us look backwards in time to the building blocks of our development and forward to enable us to use those personal and shared memories to create and grow community.
The William James College Department of Continuing Education is honored to invite you to an evening talk from eminent scholar and food icon, Dr. Jessica B. Harris.
World-renowned culinary historian Dr. Harris is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, three-time James Beard Foundation Award recipient, and Netflix Peabody Award winning-docuseries executive producer. Dr. Harris’ seminal work, High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America, is the result of a lifetime of research and scholarship on the food and foodways of the African diaspora.
On the evening of Thursday, October 8, 2026, Dr. Harris will continue to explore the enormous power of food as memory and community builder for the William James College community.
Dr. Harris will offer strategies for the curation of memories with special emphasis on those useful for the creation of culinary memoir. Participants will explore the power of culinary recall and learn about its ability to nurture structures for wellness, belonging, and community.
Time will be set aside for questions and discussion.
Guest Lecturer
Jessica B. Harris, PhD
Dr. Harris is a professor emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York, where she taught for 50 years. She is the author of 19 books, including cookbooks, non-fiction food writing, and memoir. She is the recipient of three James Beard Foundation Awards, including one for Lifetime Achievement in 2020. Her book High on the Hog was adapted in 2021 as an eponymous eight-part Netflix series and won a Peabody award in 2022.
In 2015, Dr. Harris was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters honoris causa from Johnson & Wales University. She was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2021.
Photo credit: Netflix docuseries High on the Hog
"One of the things that's happened is that everybody's talking about food. Food has become the lingua franca with which we talk with each other and with which we talk about ourselves. Food is so much a part of who we are: we don't eat, we die. It's extraordinary in its simplicity."
–High on the Hog, Netflix docuseries
Learning Objectives
Learning Objective #1:
At the end of this lecture, participants will be able to describe culinary recall and its power to generate community.
Learning Objective #2:
After this lecture, participants will be able to apply techniques of internal narrative development and memoir to create a culinary autobiography.
Learning Objective #3:
After this lecture, participants will have tools for teaching others culinary recall to promote community-building and wellness.
