Shelley Ingram Presents on Food and Domestic Horror in the Novels of Shirley Jackson, April 20

Photo Submitted

Shelley Ingram

The Department of English at the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is excited to announce the third and last event in its Spring Lecture Series, a talk by Shelley Ingram from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette­.

Ingram's lecture, "Could I Eat a Child?: Food and Domestic Horror in the Novels of Shirley Jackson," will take place Thursday, April 20, from 4 to 5 p.m. in Kimpel Hall 211.

In her talk, Ingram will discuss the preoccupation with food and eating that appears in Shirley Jackson's later novels, as Jackson uses food to negotiate the boundaries between houses, women, bodies and children. Ingram will focus particularly on Jackson's implicit and explicit references to the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel," making clear the importance of food and foodways to Jackson's unique brand of domestic horror.

Ingram is an assistant professor of English at the University of Louisiana. Her research focuses primarily on the connections between folklore and contemporary American literature, including its relationship to race and racism, ethnography, food and reader reception. She has written on authors like Shirley Jackson, Ishmael Reed and Harry Crews, with essays appearing in journals such as African American Review and Food & Foodways.