Lynn McKinley - Grant, MD
Professor of Black Studies and Performing Arts at Georgetown University
Anita's Story
Anita Gonzalez, a Professor of Black Studies and Performing Arts at Georgetown University, uses storytelling as a methodology for cultural exchange. She is a prolific director and writer for the stage and a Founding Director of Georgetown University’s Racial Justice Institute.
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Gonzalez’ massive open online courses Storytelling for Social Change and Black Performance as Social Protest have reached over 50,000 learners to date. She contributes to projects which foreground experiences and histories of the under-represented. Most recently (2023), she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Dr. Gonzalez has published four books about performance histories and cultures: Performance, Dance and Political Economy (Bloomsbury), Black Performance Theory (Duke), Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality (U-Texas Press), and Jarocho’s Soul (Rowan Littlefield). Shipping Out: Race, Performance and Labor at Sea is forthcoming on the University of Michigan Press. Additional essays about intercultural performance appear in the edited collections African Performance Arts and Political Acts, Black Acting Methods, Narratives in Black British Dance, The Community Performance Reader, and the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre.
Anita's Research
Black Foodways and Cultural Resiliency applies folk and folklore methodologies to the study of African American health practies in Washington D.C. Through community events and online publication of original research drawn from the stories of residents, the project fosters learning and public engagement at the intersection of health and humanities. The project responds to the application prompt of “lore” by promoting storytelling and community engagement as a
methodology for documenting cultural resiliency inherent in African American food practices.
Food is central to memorials and community gatherings in Black diasporic cultures. Dishes using staples like okra, black-eyed peas, and yams can trace their roots back to West Africa. Food practices of African Americans migrating from the American South to Washington D.C. demonstrate the mobility and sustainability of cultural knowledge. While African American food – often fried, sugary, or grease laden - may be judged unhealthy by some, the serving and
sharing of food has united Black communities in times of economic and social strife.
The research project focuses on how storytelling and oral histories document the use of food for: 1) community building; 2) healing the sick; 3) sharing rumors and recipes, and 4) maintaining family and community legacies. The project investigator will research food lore archived in the People’s Archive at the MLK Library in Washington D.C. Additional data collected through focus groups, interviews and a community forum will be shared on a public website and through a hybrid webinar event.