Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz
Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz is the Vice President of Collections and Public Engagement at Stratford Hall and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of African American Studies at U.C. Berkeley. She holds a BA in Africana Studies and History from The College of William & Mary and an MA and Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. Deetz is a public historian dedicated to researching the history of enslaved Africans and African Americans, elevating their stories, and amplifying the need for acknowledgement and reconciliation. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine, which was named one of the top ten books on food of 2017 by the Smithsonian Magazine and later inspired a poem by Alice Walker. You can find her most recent work in Audible’s “The Great Courses on the history of sugar”, and her contribution to the cookbook California Soul, with celebrity and OWN tv star Chef Tanya Holland and author Alice Walker. Her work can be found in the Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, several podcasts, “The Conversation”, USA Today, and in lectures on YouTube.
