This path-breaking collaboration by leading Black scholars examines the complexities of Black life in Canadian post-secondary education.
The essays in Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy make visible the submerged stories of Black life in academia. They offer fresh historical, social, and cultural insights into what it means to teach, learn, research, and work while Black.
In daring to shift from margin to centre, the book’s contributors confront two overlapping themes. First, they resist a singular construction of Blackness that masks the nuances and multiplicity of what it means to be and experience the academy as Black people. Second, they challenge the stubborn durability of anti-Black tropes, the dehumanization of Blackness, persistent deficit ideologies, and the tyranny of low expectations that permeate the dominant idea of Blackness in the white colonial imagination.
Operating at the intersections of discourse and experience, contributors reflect on how Blackness shapes academic pathways, ignites complicated and often difficult conversations, and reimagines Black pasts, presents, and futures. This unique collection contributes to the articulation of more nuanced understandings of the ways in which Blackness is made, unmade, and remade in the academy and the implications for interrelated dynamics across and within post-secondary education, Black communities in Canada, and global Black diasporas.
Edited by:
Awad Ibrahim,
Tamari Kitossa,
Malinda S. Smith,
Handel K. Wright
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 36mm
Weight: 740g
ISBN: 9781487528706
ISBN 10: 1487528701
Pages: 488
Publication Date: 01 May 2022
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Figures and Tables Preface: The Nuances of Blackness: A Genesis and Outline Acknowledgments Introduction: A Meditation on the Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy Awad Ibrahim, Tamari Kitossa, Malinda S. Smith, and Handel Kashope Wright Part One: Blackness: What’s in a Name? Commentary on Part I: Why the Study of Blackness Is Critical at This Historical Juncture George J. Sefa Dei 1. The Awkward Presence of Blackness in the Canadian Academy Handel Kashope Wright 2. Exposed! The Ivory Tower’s Code Noir Delia D. Douglas 3. The Precariat African-Canadian Academic: Problematic Historical Constructions, Perpetual Struggles for Recognition Ali A. Abdi 4. What Have Deleuze and Guattari Got to Do with Blackness? A Rhizomatic Analysis of Blackness Awad Ibrahim 5. Dancing with the Invisibility/Inaudibility: Nuances of Blackness in a Francophone Context Gina Thésée Part Two: Blackness and Academic Pathways Commentary on Part II: Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Challenges, Contestations, and Contradictions Wisdom J. Tettey 6. Hidden Figures: Black Scholars in the Early Canadian Academy Malinda S. Smith 7. Committed to Employment Equity? Impediments to Obtaining University Appointments Carl E. James 8 Black Gay Scholar and the Provocation of Promotion Wesley Crichlow 9 “Certain Uncertainty”: Phenomenology of an African Canadian Professor Tamari Kitossa 10. Socio-Cultural Obligations and the Academic Career: The Dual Expectations Facing Black Canadian Academics Kay-Ann Williams and Gervan Fearon Part Three: Blackness: A Complicated Canadian Conversation Commentary on Part III: “Killing Us Softly” – with Questions Annette Henry 11. Fitting (Out-Fitting) In Henry Daniel 12. The Caged Bird Still Sings in Harmony: The Academy, Spoken Word Poetry, and the Making of Community Emmanuel Tabi 13. States of Being: The Poet & Scholar as a Black, African, & Diasporic Woman Juliane Okot Bitek 14. Intersectionality in Blackface: When Post-racial Nationalism Meets Black Feminism Délice Mugabo 15. Re-spatializing the Boundaries of Belonging: The Subversive Blackness of Muslim Women Jan-Therese Mendes Part Four: Black Pasts, Black Futurity Commentary on Part IV: Surviving Anti-Blackness: Vulnerability, Speaking Back, and Building Black Futurity Shirley Anne Tate 16. (Re)situating Black Studies at York University: Unsilencing the Past, Locating the Present, Routing Futures at the York University Black Graduate Students’ Collective 17. Community Service Learning and Anti-Blackness: The Cost of Playing with Fire on the Black Female Body Delores v. Mullings 18. Blackness and the Limits of Institutional Good Will Omisoore H. Dryden 19. Leadership in Neoliberal Times: A Road to Nowhere Jennifer R. Kelly 20. Vocation of the Black Scholar in the Neoliberal Academy: A Love Story Adelle Blackett 21. The Changing Same: Black Lives Matter, the Work of History, and the Historian’s Craft Barrington Walker 22. Charting Black Presence and Futures in the Canadian Academy Malinda S. Smith Contributors
Awad Ibrahim is a professor and curriculum theorist in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. Tamari Kitossa is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Brock University. Malinda S. Smith is the inaugural vice-provost of equity, diversity, and inclusion and a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Calgary. Handel K. Wright is the inaugural senior advisor to the president on anti-racism and inclusive excellence; the director of the Centre for Culture, Identity, and Education; and a professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia.
Reviews for Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Teaching, Learning, and Researching while Black
Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy gathers highly respected scholars vested in critical race and feminist theories and critical pedagogy. Altogether, they have provided a very rich review of relevant literature on interconnected themes they have critically explored in their respective chapters. This volume will be perfect for those interested in critical race and ethnic studies, Black studies, sociology, sociology of education, multicultural education, postcolonial theory, and history. - Pierre W. Orelus, Associate Professor of Educational Studies and Teacher Preparation, Fairfield University This is undoubtedly a much-needed book in the archives of the Canadian academy. Exploring the multiplicity and complexity of the experiences of Black scholars in Canada, the authors express a common theme throughout this collection of essays - the various forms of anti-Black racism experienced by the Black scholar and the perpetual struggle against exclusion from the deeply ingrained culture of whiteness that characterizes institutions of higher learning in Canada. - Joy Mighty, Professor Emerita and Former Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), Carleton University
