NYBALF returns to Harlem, September 18–20. Free Festival Registration is open →
Ashante Reese
Writer • Anthropologist
Dr. Ashanté M. Reese is an award-winning author, anthropologist, and teacher. Weaving together food justice, geography, and care, she offers stories about the practices that sustain and free us. Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness (W.W. Norton, 2026) is her latest book. She teaches at The University of Texas at Austin.
Events featuring
this guest
Sunday Sept. 20 2026 • 1:00 PM | Harlem Stage Gatehouse
Come Chop: Food, Memory, and the Art of Gathering
Ozoz Sokoh · Ashanté Reese
“Come chop” is a familiar Nigerian invitation: come and eat, come sit, come share in what is on the table. Positioned as the festival’s Sunday lunch gathering, this layered literary and sensory session brings Nigerian food explorer and writer Ozoz Sokoh together with scholar and writer Ashanté Reese for a conversation on Black food, memory, geography, nourishment, care, and the politics of gathering. The session is being developed to move between reading, conversation, image, and taste, with short films and a focused Eat the Books element under consideration.