Tuesday, February 25: Public Lecture by Dr. Ashanté M. Reese, "The Carceral Life of Sugar: Plantations, Prisons, and the Contemporary Food System"

On Tuesday, February 25, Dr. Ashanté M. Reese (University of Maryland) will present "The Carceral Life of Sugar: Plantations, Prisons, and the Contemporary Food System."Focusing on the Imperial Sugar Company and the convict lease system in Texas, this talk offers a history of carceral sugar production, arguing that sugar functions as a carceral technology that structures much of the contemporary food system and facilitates the regulation of Black lives within and beyond incarceration. Theoretically, the talk draws from work that materially and metaphorically situates the plantation as a set of enduring logics and physical manifestations that in part structure unfreedom, the movement of capital, and possibilities for liberation.This Department of American Studies co-sponsored lecture is free and open to the public. Please join us tomorrow at 1 pm in RLP 1.302E.