WGST Book Talk with Dr. Alex Ketchum

About This Event

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies presents:
Serving Up the Ingredients for Revolution: The 50+ Years of Lesbian and Queer Labor Behind American Feminist, Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (1972-2024)

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Dr. Alex Ketchum's book Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. On October 15th, Ketchum will discuss how these eateries were and continue to be key sites of cultural and political significance. These institutions served an essential role for multiple social justice movements including women’s liberation, LGBTQ equality, and food justice, as well as for training women workers and entrepreneurs.

Dr. Alex Ketchum is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University. She is the Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab and the organizer of Disrupting Disruptions: The Feminist and Accessible Publishing, Communications, and Tech Speaker and Workshop Series. Her work integrates food, technological, queer, and gender history. Ketchum's first peer-reviewed book, Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication (2022), examines the power dynamics that impact who gets to create certain kinds of academic work and for whom these outputs are accessible. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Ketchum's second book, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (2022), is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. You can find out more about her other writings, podcasts, zines, exhibitions, and more at www.alexketchum.ca.