aadavis


Andrea A. Davis

Photo of Andrea A. Davis

Professor
Chair, Senate Academic Policy, Planning & Research Committee (APPRC)
Co-Editor, Journal of Canadian Studies

Office: 821 Kaneff Tower
Phone: 416-736-2100 Ext: 44344
Email: aadavis@yorku.ca


Andrea A. Davis is a Professor in the Department of Humanities and Chair of the Senate Academic Policy, Planning and Research Committee (APPRC). She teaches and supervises in literatures and cultures of the Black Americas and holds cross-appointments in the graduate programs in English; Interdisciplinary Studies; Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies; and Social and Political Thought. She is the author of Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation (Northwestern University Press, 2022) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature (forthcoming 2024).

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Andrea is an accomplished teacher who has won teaching awards at the Faculty, university and national levels, including a 2021 3M National Teaching Fellowship. A former Canadian Commonwealth scholar, her research focuses on the literary productions of Black women in the Americas. She is particularly interested in the intersections of the literatures of the Caribbean, the United States and Canada and her work encourages an intertextual cross-cultural dialogue about Black women's experiences in diaspora. She is former Chair of the Department of Humanities and former interim director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC). Her SSHRC-funded research on the effects of violence on Black youth in Canada and Jamaica, housed at CERLAC, was profiled in the Council of Ontario Universities' Research Matters campaign in 2012-2013.

Degrees

PhD, York University
MA, York University
BA (first class hons.), University of the West Indies, Mona Campus

Professional Leadership

Academic Convener, 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2021-2023
Founder and Coordinator, Black Canadian Studies Certificate, 2018-2023
Special Advisor Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies' Anti-Black Racism Strategies, 2020-2021
Academic Colleague, Council of Ontario Universities, 2018-2020
Chair, Department of Humanities, 2015-2020

Community Contributions

Canadian Pedagogy Advisory Board, Sage Publishing, 2021-present
Member, Legal Aid Ontario’s Racialized Communities Advisory Committee, 2017 – 2022

Research Interests

, Caribbean, African American and Black Canadian Literatures and Theatre, African Diaspora Studies , Black Cultural and Feminist Studies, Black and Indigenous Solidarities
  • Honorary Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), Royal Roads University, Victoria BC - 2023
  • 3M National Teaching Fellowship - 2021
  • Inaugural Anne Shteir Prize for Excellence in Program Development and Curricular Leadership, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies - 2019
  • 100 Accomplished Black Canadian women, 100abcwomen.ca - 2018
  • Renaissance Award, Afro-Global Television Excellence Awards Program - 2017
  • President’s University-Wide Teaching Award Senior Full-Time Category - 2017
  • Best paper award, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) Conference, Tel Aviv Israel - 2015
  • Outstanding Research Profile, Research Matters Campaign, Council of Ontario Universities - 2012-2013
  • Ian Greene Award for Teaching Excellence - 2012
  • Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship - 1989-1994

Current Research Projects

Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization

    Summary:

    Edited Journal Special Issue, Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, University of Texas at El Paso, Spring 2023

    Description:

    The months of May and June, 2020, saw unprecedented global protests against anti-Black racism and calls for a more equitable and just society that recognizes the humanity and lives of people of African descent. While these protests initially originated across the United States, protesters around the world quickly galvanized in support of these issues, organizing events in a growing number of countries, including Canada, Mexico, Haiti, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia and Japan. This has been an important moment for Black scholars, activists, and cultural producers everywhere—as well as their friends and allies—to reflect not only on the crisis that has marked Black lives, but also on our future possibilities.

    To facilitate these and other conversations, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Humanities invites papers on research pertaining to the theme of “Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization.” This timely special issue aims to include papers that capture forms of African descendants’ resistance against the tyranny of white supremacy across multiple continents. The scope of this issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

    1. Black art, literatures, music, media, and cultures
    2. Transnational activism/resistance in all its forms
    3. Black Psychology/Black self-care/Black joy
    4. Black subjectivities and experiences in academia
    5. Black Feminisms/Womanism
    6. Recovering Black histories/identities
    7. African religiosity and spirituality, contemporary and historical
    8. Black political participation and engagement

    The deadline for complete papers (6000 words) is January 1, 2021. Please send enquiries and submissions to guillorycry@uhd.edu. Decisions on publication will be made by March 31, 2021. The guest editors of the special issue are Sarita Cannon (sncannon@sfsu.edu), Andrea Davis (aadavis@yorku.ca), and Crystal Guillory (guillorycry@uhd.edu ).

    See more
    Role: Co-editor

    Start Date:
      Month: Jun   Year: 2020

    End Date:
      Month: Jun   Year: 2023

    Collaborator: Sarita Cannon and Crystal Guillory
    Collaborator Institution: San Francisco State University and University of Houston - Downton
    Collaborator Role: Co-editors

The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature

    Summary:

    The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature, co-edited with Leslie Sanders, is a comprehensive introduction to Black Canadian literatures consisting of 33 chapters of approximately 8,000 words each organized in five sections: (1) Establishing a Canon, (2) Black Literary Geographies, (3) Genre and Modes of Writing, (4) Performance and Voice, and (5) Major Writers of Influence. Expected publication is fall 2024.

    Description:

    The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature offers a comprehensive overview of the growing and increasingly significant field of Black Canadian literary studies. Including both historical and contemporary analysis, the volume is an essential text that maps the field over the almost 200 years of its existence from slave narratives and anti-slavery journalism to dub and sound experiments. It presents Black Canadian literature as encompassing a diverse set of viewpoints, approaches and practices, as touching every aspect of Canadian territory and life, and as deeply influencing debates and understandings of Black peoples far beyond its borders. The handbook employs an interdisciplinary framework that incorporates literary, historical, geographical and cultural analysis and is organized into five sections that chart the literature’s development across Canada, its relationship to the country’s diverse Black communities and their diasporas, and its narration of both specifically Canadian, as well as global concerns. Contributors are drawn from among the most prominent theorists in the field, as well as from a cohort of emergent scholars and artists. The volume’s range of subject and plurality of perspectives provide an excellent resource for teachers, researchers, and students from multiple disciplines, including Canadian studies and literature, Caribbean studies, global Black studies, hemispheric studies, diaspora studies, history, and cultural studies.

    See more
    Role: Edited Volume for research and teaching

    Start Date:
      Month: Sep   Year: 2020

    End Date:
      Month: Dec   Year: 2024

    Collaborator: Leslie Sanders
    Collaborator Institution: York University
    Collaborator Role: Co-editor

Youth and Community Development in Canada and Jamaica: A Transnational Approach to Youth Violence

    Summary:

    The project brought together three community organizations and 18 researchers from six universities in Canada and Jamaica, organized in three research clusters. It sought to realize critical social improvements in the lives of youth, ages 16 to 29, by exploring new approaches to research on the effects of violence on Black youth.

    Description:

    The partnership situated its team of Canadian and Jamaican researchers and community workers within an emerging body of research that confirms the success of culturally based programs in encouraging youth and broad civic engagement. The partnership expanded this existing research in two important ways. First, it included a transnational approach between the two countries. The goal was to examine whether positive youth engagement through the arts might be further enhanced for Black youth in Canada and Jamaica by bringing these youth into conversations across their intersecting national and cultural borders. Second, by using an approach that combined art-based programs with social history and literature, the partnership expanded the research field by seeking to determine whether a greater understanding of Jamaican society might help Black Toronto youth achieve the positive identity formation needed to challenge the effects of anti-Black racism.

    Findings from the project confirmed that Black youth in Canada identify anti-Black racism as the most pervasive and damaging form of violence they face, particularly as expressed in the educational system and labour market, as well as through differential treatment based on class, age, gender and geographical location. Jamaican youth (both urban and rural) identified class-based oppression as the most oppressive form of violence they experience on a daily basis.

    See more
    Role: Principal Investigator

    Start Date:
      Month: Jul   Year: 2011

    End Date:
      Month: Apr   Year: 2014

    Collaborator: Vermonja Alston; Erna Brodber; Karen Burke; Mirna Carranza; Peter Cumming; Donald Davis; Asheda Dwyer; Honor Ford-Smith; Cecil Foster; Carl James; Michele Johnson; Donna Hope; Naila Keleta Mae; Richard Maclure; Jalani Niaah; Sonja Stanley Niaah; L'Antoinette Osunide Stines; Ronald Westray
    Collaborator Institution: McMaster University; University of Guelph; University of Waterloo; University of Ottawa; University of the West Indies (Mona); Nia Centre for the Arts; Jamaica Youth Theatre; Woodside Community Action Group
    Collaborator Role: Co-researchers and partners

    Funders:
    SSHRC
Books

Publication
Year

Marcelle-Anne Fletcher, Michelle Molubi-Johnson, Andrea A. Davis, Canisia Lubrin, Christina Sharpe, and David Chariandy (eds). A Gathering: Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging at 20. Journal special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies issue 46, March 2023, University of Toronto Press.

2023

Sarita N. Cannon, Andrea A. Davis, and Crystal Guillory (eds). Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Toward Liberation and Colonization. Journal special issue Interdisciplinary Humanities, vol. 38:1 (spring 2021 issue; published February 2023), University of Texas at El Paso (180 pp).

2023

Davis, Andrea A. Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, January 2022.

2022

Andrea A. Davis and Leslie Sanders (eds). Celebrating Austin Clarke—the Man and the Body of His Work. Journal special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies issue 42, Spring 2021, University of Toronto Press.

2021

James, Carl E., and Davis, Andrea (eds.) Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012.

2012

Book Chapters

Publication
Year

Andrea Davis, “From Canada to Jamaica: Miss Lou and the Poetics of Migration.” Miss Lou an Jamiekan Langwij: Commemorations and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Michele Johnson. Africa World Press, 2022. 63-83. (Updated and reprinted from Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Eds. Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 230-245.)

2022

Andrea A. Davis, “Brown Girl in the Ring: Caribbean Subversive Knowledges and the Discourse of Canadian Citizenship.” Relation and Resistance: Racialized Women, Religion and Diaspora. Eds. Sailaja Krishnamurti and Becky R. Lee. Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021. 217-236.

2021

Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. “Canadian-Jamaican.” The Jamaica Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Eds. Diana Paton and Matthew J. Smith. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2021. 465-467. (Extract reprinted from Carl E. James and Andrea Davis, “Instructive Episodes: The Shifting Positions of the Jamaican Diaspora in Canada.” Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean 14:1 (2012) 17-41; published fall 2015).

2021

Andrea A. Davis. “‘What Floats in the Air Is Chance’: Respectability Politics and the Search for Upward Mobility in Canada.” Critical response to “‘Colour Matters’: Suburban Life as Social Mobility and Its High Cost for Black Youth” in Colour Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education, and Pursuits of Black Youth by Carl E. James. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 278-282.

2021

Andrea Davis, “Women and Healing in Anglophone Caribbean Literature.” Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions. Ed. Patrick Taylor and Frederick I. Case. 2 vols. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013, vol. 1. 525-534

2013

Davis, Andrea and James, Carl E. “Introduction.” Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Eds. Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 10-12.

2012

Andrea Davis, “Project Groundings: Canadian and Jamaican Youth (Re)Define Violence.” Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Eds. Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 329-342.

2012

Andrea Davis, "Rearticulations, Reconnections and Refigurations: Writing Africa Through the Americas." Africa and Trans-Atlantic Memories: Literary and Aesthetic manifestations of Diaspora and History. Ed. NaanaOpoku-Agyemang, Paul E. Lovejoy and David V. Trotman. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2008. 275-290.

2008

Andrea Davis, "A Feminist Exploration in African Canadian Literature." Multiple Lenses: Voices From the African Diaspora Located in Canada. Ed. David Divine. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 250-261.

2007

Andrea Davis, "Sex and the Nation: Performing Black Female Sexuality in Canadian Theatre." African-Canadian Theatre. Ed. Maureen Moynagh. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2005. 107-122

2005

Andrea Davis, “Rewriting Calypso as Feminist Discourse: Jean and Dinah ‘Take Over Now.’” Scholarly Introduction to Jean and Dinah by Tony Hall in Testyfyin': Contemporary African Canadian Drama: Vol. II. Ed. Djanet Sears. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2003. 151-154.

2003

Andrea Davis, “Healing in the Kitchen: Women’s Performance as Rituals of Change.” Scholarly Introduction to sistahs by maxine bailey and sharon m. lewis in Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama: Volume I. Ed. Djanet Sears. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2000. 279-280.

2000

Book Reviews

Publication
Year

Review of Afrodiasporic Forms: Slavery in Literature and Culture of the African Diaspora, by Raquel Kennon (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022), 336 pp. American Literary History Review vol. 35:3 (summer 2023) 1478–1480.

2023

“World of a Reading Self.” Dionne Brand, An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading, University of Alberta Press, 2020, 72 pp. Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, 21 January 2022. Web.

2022

“Narrating Black Canada.” Book review essay: Paul Barrett, Blackening Canada: Diaspora, Race, Multiculturalism, University of Toronto Press, 2015, 256 pp.; and Harvey Amani Whitfield, North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes, University of British Colombia Press, 2016, 192 pp.

2017

The Black Atlantic Reconsidered: Black Canadian Writing, Cultural History, and the Presence of the Past by Winfried Siemerling. Literature & History 25:2 (November 2016) 214-216.

2016

Healing Cultures: Art and Religion as Curative Practices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora edited by Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 31:61 (2006) 261-263.

2006

The Swinging Bridge by Ramabai Espinet. MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars vol. 7 (2005) 183-186.

2005

In Praise of New Travelers: Reading Caribbean Migrant Women’s Writing by Isabel Hoving. Resources for Feminist Research 29:3/4 (2002) 258-260.

2002

The Heart Does not Bend by Makeda Silvera. MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars 5 (2002) 253-255.

2002

Journal Articles

Publication
Year

Andrea A. Davis. “A Project Toward Black Life: Teaching Black Studies in the Humanities.” Another University, now. Special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 47 (Fall 2023) 224-233.

2023

Sarita N. Cannon, Andrea A. Davis, and Crystal Guillory. “Editors’ Introduction.” Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Toward Liberation & Decolonization, special issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities vol. 38:1 (spring 2021 issue; published February 2023) 3-7.

2023

Andrea A. Davis. “Epilogue: Unraveling Colonial Cartographies – Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return at 20: A Gathering.” A Gathering: Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging at 20. Special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies issue 46 (March 2023) 255-259.

2023

“Reckoning with the Legacy of Universities: Reflections on Congress 2023.” The Evolution of Equity. Academic Matters: OCUFA’s Journal of Higher Education (fall 2023) 6-9.

2023

Andrea A. Davis and Carl E. James. “‘The biggest mistake you ever made was thinking that nobody cared about me’: The Representation of Black Lives in Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers.” Canadian Theatre Review vol. 193 (winter 2023) 97-100.

2023

Andrea A. Davis, Aysha Campbell, and Michelle Molubi. “‘They are blue and pretty and wild’: Race, Place and Black Interiority in David Chariandy’s Brother.” Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Toward Liberation & Decolonization, special issue Interdisciplinary Humanities vol. 38:1 (spring 2021 issue; published 2023) 155-176.

2023

Andrea A. Davis, “‘Go on, go on the brilliant future doesn’t wait’: Reflections on Dionne Brand’s 2021 Kitty Lundy Memorial Lecture.” sx salon: A Small Axe Literary Platform 38 & 39 , February 2022.

2022

Andrea A. Davis, “‘Jamaican’ as Synecdoche for Black Male Identification: Performing Blackness in Toronto.” Histoire sociale / Social History vol. 55, no. 114 (December 2022) 399-416.

2022

Andrea A. Davis and Elaine Coburn, “Editorial Statement.” Journal of Canadian Studies 55:2 (Summer 2021) 231-233.

2021

Andrea A. Davis and Leslie Sanders. “Editorial Introduction: Celebrating Austin Clarke—the Man and the Body of His Work.” Celebrating Austin Clarke—the Man and the Body of His Work, special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 42 (spring 2021) 1- 4.

2021

Andrea A. Davis, “Which Scandalous Bodies? Black Women Writers Refuse Nation Narratives.” Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review 243 (fall 2020) 146-152.

2020

Andrea A. Davis, “Un/Belonging in Diasporic Cities: A Literary History of Caribbean Women in London and Toronto.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 13 (June 2019) 17-50.

2019

Andrea A. Davis, "The Black Woman Native Speaking Subject: Reflections of a Black Female Professor in Canada." Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice 39.1 (2018): 70-78.

2018

Andrea A. Davis, “‘The Real Toronto’: Black Youth Experiences and the Narration of the Multicultural City Journal of Canadian Studies 51:3 (Fall 2017) 725-748.

2017

James, Carl E. and Andrea Davis, “Instructive Episodes: The Shifting Positions of the Jamaican Diaspora in Canada.” Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean 14:1 (spring 2012) 1-26. (published fall 2015)

2015

James, Carl E. and Andrea Davis, “Jamaican Males’ Readings of Masculinities and the Relationship to Violence.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities, ed. Crichlow et al, 8 (December 2014) 79-112.

2014

Andrea Davis, "Black Canadian Literature as Diaspora Transgression: The Second Life of Samuel Tyne." TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. Ed. Jenny Burman. Spec. issue of Diasporic Pasts and Futures: Transnational Cultural Studies in Canada 17 (Spring 2007): 31-49.

2007

Andrea Davis, "Translating Narratives of Masculinity Across Borders: A Jamaican Case Study." Caribbean Quarterly. Ed. Taitu Heron and Hilary Nicholson. Spec issue of Unraveling Gender, Development and Civil Society in the Caribbean 52.2-3 (June-Sept. 2006): 22-38.

2006

Andrea Davis, "We Have Historically Been ‘Rooted’ in/Routed to this Place and we are Here to Stay: Women’s Voices in Black Canadian Literature." NEW DAWN: Journal of Black Canadian Studies 1.1 (Spring 2006): 68-74.

2006

Andrea Davis, "Diaspora, Citizenship and Gender: Challenging the Myth of the Nation in African Canadian Women’s Literature."Canadian Woman Studies 23.2 (2004): 64-69.

2004

Public Lectures

Publication
Year

“Black Tax and the Invisible Labour of Black Women in the Academy,” Scholar Strike Canada digital teach-in, moderated by Michele Johnson, September 10, 2020.

2020

Farah Nasser (host), “Living in Colour: Why ignoring Canada’s anti-Black racism affects
Black Canadians today.” Global News, June 12, 2020. Television.

2020

Forthcoming

Publication
Year

Davis, Andrea A. and Leslie Sanders (eds). The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature (expected publication fall 2024)


Other

Publication
Year

“York’s Andrea Davis says Congress 2023 theme had to be ‘reckonings and re-imaginings.’”
News@York, 22 February 2023.

2023


Current Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Fall/Winter 2023 AP/HUMA1300 9.0 A Cultures of Resistance in the Americas LECT



Andrea A. Davis is a Professor in the Department of Humanities and Chair of the Senate Academic Policy, Planning and Research Committee (APPRC). She teaches and supervises in literatures and cultures of the Black Americas and holds cross-appointments in the graduate programs in English; Interdisciplinary Studies; Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies; and Social and Political Thought. She is the author of Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation (Northwestern University Press, 2022) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature (forthcoming 2024).

Andrea is an accomplished teacher who has won teaching awards at the Faculty, university and national levels, including a 2021 3M National Teaching Fellowship. A former Canadian Commonwealth scholar, her research focuses on the literary productions of Black women in the Americas. She is particularly interested in the intersections of the literatures of the Caribbean, the United States and Canada and her work encourages an intertextual cross-cultural dialogue about Black women's experiences in diaspora. She is former Chair of the Department of Humanities and former interim director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC). Her SSHRC-funded research on the effects of violence on Black youth in Canada and Jamaica, housed at CERLAC, was profiled in the Council of Ontario Universities' Research Matters campaign in 2012-2013.

Degrees

PhD, York University
MA, York University
BA (first class hons.), University of the West Indies, Mona Campus

Professional Leadership

Academic Convener, 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2021-2023
Founder and Coordinator, Black Canadian Studies Certificate, 2018-2023
Special Advisor Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies' Anti-Black Racism Strategies, 2020-2021
Academic Colleague, Council of Ontario Universities, 2018-2020
Chair, Department of Humanities, 2015-2020

Community Contributions

Canadian Pedagogy Advisory Board, Sage Publishing, 2021-present
Member, Legal Aid Ontario’s Racialized Communities Advisory Committee, 2017 – 2022

Research Interests

, Caribbean, African American and Black Canadian Literatures and Theatre, African Diaspora Studies , Black Cultural and Feminist Studies, Black and Indigenous Solidarities

Awards

  • Honorary Doctor of Laws (honoris causa), Royal Roads University, Victoria BC - 2023
  • 3M National Teaching Fellowship - 2021
  • Inaugural Anne Shteir Prize for Excellence in Program Development and Curricular Leadership, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies - 2019
  • 100 Accomplished Black Canadian women, 100abcwomen.ca - 2018
  • Renaissance Award, Afro-Global Television Excellence Awards Program - 2017
  • President’s University-Wide Teaching Award Senior Full-Time Category - 2017
  • Best paper award, Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI) Conference, Tel Aviv Israel - 2015
  • Outstanding Research Profile, Research Matters Campaign, Council of Ontario Universities - 2012-2013
  • Ian Greene Award for Teaching Excellence - 2012
  • Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship - 1989-1994

Current Research Projects

Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization

    Summary:

    Edited Journal Special Issue, Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal, University of Texas at El Paso, Spring 2023

    Description:

    The months of May and June, 2020, saw unprecedented global protests against anti-Black racism and calls for a more equitable and just society that recognizes the humanity and lives of people of African descent. While these protests initially originated across the United States, protesters around the world quickly galvanized in support of these issues, organizing events in a growing number of countries, including Canada, Mexico, Haiti, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia and Japan. This has been an important moment for Black scholars, activists, and cultural producers everywhere—as well as their friends and allies—to reflect not only on the crisis that has marked Black lives, but also on our future possibilities.

    To facilitate these and other conversations, the Journal of Interdisciplinary Humanities invites papers on research pertaining to the theme of “Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Towards Liberation and Decolonization.” This timely special issue aims to include papers that capture forms of African descendants’ resistance against the tyranny of white supremacy across multiple continents. The scope of this issue is intended to be broad and inclusive of diverse methodologies, theories, and approaches. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

    1. Black art, literatures, music, media, and cultures
    2. Transnational activism/resistance in all its forms
    3. Black Psychology/Black self-care/Black joy
    4. Black subjectivities and experiences in academia
    5. Black Feminisms/Womanism
    6. Recovering Black histories/identities
    7. African religiosity and spirituality, contemporary and historical
    8. Black political participation and engagement

    The deadline for complete papers (6000 words) is January 1, 2021. Please send enquiries and submissions to guillorycry@uhd.edu. Decisions on publication will be made by March 31, 2021. The guest editors of the special issue are Sarita Cannon (sncannon@sfsu.edu), Andrea Davis (aadavis@yorku.ca), and Crystal Guillory (guillorycry@uhd.edu ).

    Project Type: Self-Funded
    Role: Co-editor

    Start Date:
      Month: Jun   Year: 2020

    End Date:
      Month: Jun   Year: 2023

    Collaborator: Sarita Cannon and Crystal Guillory
    Collaborator Institution: San Francisco State University and University of Houston - Downton
    Collaborator Role: Co-editors

The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature

    Summary:

    The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature, co-edited with Leslie Sanders, is a comprehensive introduction to Black Canadian literatures consisting of 33 chapters of approximately 8,000 words each organized in five sections: (1) Establishing a Canon, (2) Black Literary Geographies, (3) Genre and Modes of Writing, (4) Performance and Voice, and (5) Major Writers of Influence. Expected publication is fall 2024.

    Description:

    The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature offers a comprehensive overview of the growing and increasingly significant field of Black Canadian literary studies. Including both historical and contemporary analysis, the volume is an essential text that maps the field over the almost 200 years of its existence from slave narratives and anti-slavery journalism to dub and sound experiments. It presents Black Canadian literature as encompassing a diverse set of viewpoints, approaches and practices, as touching every aspect of Canadian territory and life, and as deeply influencing debates and understandings of Black peoples far beyond its borders. The handbook employs an interdisciplinary framework that incorporates literary, historical, geographical and cultural analysis and is organized into five sections that chart the literature’s development across Canada, its relationship to the country’s diverse Black communities and their diasporas, and its narration of both specifically Canadian, as well as global concerns. Contributors are drawn from among the most prominent theorists in the field, as well as from a cohort of emergent scholars and artists. The volume’s range of subject and plurality of perspectives provide an excellent resource for teachers, researchers, and students from multiple disciplines, including Canadian studies and literature, Caribbean studies, global Black studies, hemispheric studies, diaspora studies, history, and cultural studies.

    Project Type: Self-Funded
    Role: Edited Volume for research and teaching

    Start Date:
      Month: Sep   Year: 2020

    End Date:
      Month: Dec   Year: 2024

    Collaborator: Leslie Sanders
    Collaborator Institution: York University
    Collaborator Role: Co-editor

Youth and Community Development in Canada and Jamaica: A Transnational Approach to Youth Violence

    Summary:

    The project brought together three community organizations and 18 researchers from six universities in Canada and Jamaica, organized in three research clusters. It sought to realize critical social improvements in the lives of youth, ages 16 to 29, by exploring new approaches to research on the effects of violence on Black youth.

    Description:

    The partnership situated its team of Canadian and Jamaican researchers and community workers within an emerging body of research that confirms the success of culturally based programs in encouraging youth and broad civic engagement. The partnership expanded this existing research in two important ways. First, it included a transnational approach between the two countries. The goal was to examine whether positive youth engagement through the arts might be further enhanced for Black youth in Canada and Jamaica by bringing these youth into conversations across their intersecting national and cultural borders. Second, by using an approach that combined art-based programs with social history and literature, the partnership expanded the research field by seeking to determine whether a greater understanding of Jamaican society might help Black Toronto youth achieve the positive identity formation needed to challenge the effects of anti-Black racism.

    Findings from the project confirmed that Black youth in Canada identify anti-Black racism as the most pervasive and damaging form of violence they face, particularly as expressed in the educational system and labour market, as well as through differential treatment based on class, age, gender and geographical location. Jamaican youth (both urban and rural) identified class-based oppression as the most oppressive form of violence they experience on a daily basis.

    Project Type: Funded
    Role: Principal Investigator

    Start Date:
      Month: Jul   Year: 2011

    End Date:
      Month: Apr   Year: 2014

    Collaborator: Vermonja Alston; Erna Brodber; Karen Burke; Mirna Carranza; Peter Cumming; Donald Davis; Asheda Dwyer; Honor Ford-Smith; Cecil Foster; Carl James; Michele Johnson; Donna Hope; Naila Keleta Mae; Richard Maclure; Jalani Niaah; Sonja Stanley Niaah; L'Antoinette Osunide Stines; Ronald Westray
    Collaborator Institution: McMaster University; University of Guelph; University of Waterloo; University of Ottawa; University of the West Indies (Mona); Nia Centre for the Arts; Jamaica Youth Theatre; Woodside Community Action Group
    Collaborator Role: Co-researchers and partners

    Funders:
    SSHRC

All Publications


Book Chapters

Publication
Year

Andrea Davis, “From Canada to Jamaica: Miss Lou and the Poetics of Migration.” Miss Lou an Jamiekan Langwij: Commemorations and Critical Perspectives. Ed. Michele Johnson. Africa World Press, 2022. 63-83. (Updated and reprinted from Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Eds. Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 230-245.)

2022

Andrea A. Davis, “Brown Girl in the Ring: Caribbean Subversive Knowledges and the Discourse of Canadian Citizenship.” Relation and Resistance: Racialized Women, Religion and Diaspora. Eds. Sailaja Krishnamurti and Becky R. Lee. Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021. 217-236.

2021

Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. “Canadian-Jamaican.” The Jamaica Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Eds. Diana Paton and Matthew J. Smith. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2021. 465-467. (Extract reprinted from Carl E. James and Andrea Davis, “Instructive Episodes: The Shifting Positions of the Jamaican Diaspora in Canada.” Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean 14:1 (2012) 17-41; published fall 2015).

2021

Andrea A. Davis. “‘What Floats in the Air Is Chance’: Respectability Politics and the Search for Upward Mobility in Canada.” Critical response to “‘Colour Matters’: Suburban Life as Social Mobility and Its High Cost for Black Youth” in Colour Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education, and Pursuits of Black Youth by Carl E. James. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 278-282.

2021

Andrea Davis, “Women and Healing in Anglophone Caribbean Literature.” Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions. Ed. Patrick Taylor and Frederick I. Case. 2 vols. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013, vol. 1. 525-534

2013

Davis, Andrea and James, Carl E. “Introduction.” Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Eds. Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 10-12.

2012

Andrea Davis, “Project Groundings: Canadian and Jamaican Youth (Re)Define Violence.” Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Eds. Carl E. James and Andrea Davis. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012. 329-342.

2012

Andrea Davis, "Rearticulations, Reconnections and Refigurations: Writing Africa Through the Americas." Africa and Trans-Atlantic Memories: Literary and Aesthetic manifestations of Diaspora and History. Ed. NaanaOpoku-Agyemang, Paul E. Lovejoy and David V. Trotman. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2008. 275-290.

2008

Andrea Davis, "A Feminist Exploration in African Canadian Literature." Multiple Lenses: Voices From the African Diaspora Located in Canada. Ed. David Divine. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. 250-261.

2007

Andrea Davis, "Sex and the Nation: Performing Black Female Sexuality in Canadian Theatre." African-Canadian Theatre. Ed. Maureen Moynagh. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2005. 107-122

2005

Andrea Davis, “Rewriting Calypso as Feminist Discourse: Jean and Dinah ‘Take Over Now.’” Scholarly Introduction to Jean and Dinah by Tony Hall in Testyfyin': Contemporary African Canadian Drama: Vol. II. Ed. Djanet Sears. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2003. 151-154.

2003

Andrea Davis, “Healing in the Kitchen: Women’s Performance as Rituals of Change.” Scholarly Introduction to sistahs by maxine bailey and sharon m. lewis in Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama: Volume I. Ed. Djanet Sears. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2000. 279-280.

2000

Book Reviews

Publication
Year

Review of Afrodiasporic Forms: Slavery in Literature and Culture of the African Diaspora, by Raquel Kennon (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022), 336 pp. American Literary History Review vol. 35:3 (summer 2023) 1478–1480.

2023

“World of a Reading Self.” Dionne Brand, An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading, University of Alberta Press, 2020, 72 pp. Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review, 21 January 2022. Web.

2022

“Narrating Black Canada.” Book review essay: Paul Barrett, Blackening Canada: Diaspora, Race, Multiculturalism, University of Toronto Press, 2015, 256 pp.; and Harvey Amani Whitfield, North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes, University of British Colombia Press, 2016, 192 pp.

2017

The Black Atlantic Reconsidered: Black Canadian Writing, Cultural History, and the Presence of the Past by Winfried Siemerling. Literature & History 25:2 (November 2016) 214-216.

2016

Healing Cultures: Art and Religion as Curative Practices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora edited by Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert. Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 31:61 (2006) 261-263.

2006

The Swinging Bridge by Ramabai Espinet. MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars vol. 7 (2005) 183-186.

2005

In Praise of New Travelers: Reading Caribbean Migrant Women’s Writing by Isabel Hoving. Resources for Feminist Research 29:3/4 (2002) 258-260.

2002

The Heart Does not Bend by Makeda Silvera. MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars 5 (2002) 253-255.

2002

Books

Publication
Year

Marcelle-Anne Fletcher, Michelle Molubi-Johnson, Andrea A. Davis, Canisia Lubrin, Christina Sharpe, and David Chariandy (eds). A Gathering: Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging at 20. Journal special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies issue 46, March 2023, University of Toronto Press.

2023

Sarita N. Cannon, Andrea A. Davis, and Crystal Guillory (eds). Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Toward Liberation and Colonization. Journal special issue Interdisciplinary Humanities, vol. 38:1 (spring 2021 issue; published February 2023), University of Texas at El Paso (180 pp).

2023

Davis, Andrea A. Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women's Cultural Critiques of Nation. Chicago: Northwestern University Press, January 2022.

2022

Andrea A. Davis and Leslie Sanders (eds). Celebrating Austin Clarke—the Man and the Body of His Work. Journal special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies issue 42, Spring 2021, University of Toronto Press.

2021

James, Carl E., and Davis, Andrea (eds.) Jamaica in the Canadian Experience: A Multiculturalizing Presence. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing, 2012.

2012

Journal Articles

Publication
Year

Andrea A. Davis. “A Project Toward Black Life: Teaching Black Studies in the Humanities.” Another University, now. Special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 47 (Fall 2023) 224-233.

2023

Sarita N. Cannon, Andrea A. Davis, and Crystal Guillory. “Editors’ Introduction.” Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Toward Liberation & Decolonization, special issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities vol. 38:1 (spring 2021 issue; published February 2023) 3-7.

2023

Andrea A. Davis. “Epilogue: Unraveling Colonial Cartographies – Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return at 20: A Gathering.” A Gathering: Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging at 20. Special issue TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies issue 46 (March 2023) 255-259.

2023

“Reckoning with the Legacy of Universities: Reflections on Congress 2023.” The Evolution of Equity. Academic Matters: OCUFA’s Journal of Higher Education (fall 2023) 6-9.

2023

Andrea A. Davis and Carl E. James. “‘The biggest mistake you ever made was thinking that nobody cared about me’: The Representation of Black Lives in Our Fathers, Sons, Lovers and Little Brothers.” Canadian Theatre Review vol. 193 (winter 2023) 97-100.

2023

Andrea A. Davis, Aysha Campbell, and Michelle Molubi. “‘They are blue and pretty and wild’: Race, Place and Black Interiority in David Chariandy’s Brother.” Resisting White Supremacy in the African Diaspora: Moving Toward Liberation & Decolonization, special issue Interdisciplinary Humanities vol. 38:1 (spring 2021 issue; published 2023) 155-176.

2023

Andrea A. Davis, “‘Go on, go on the brilliant future doesn’t wait’: Reflections on Dionne Brand’s 2021 Kitty Lundy Memorial Lecture.” sx salon: A Small Axe Literary Platform 38 & 39 , February 2022.

2022

Andrea A. Davis, “‘Jamaican’ as Synecdoche for Black Male Identification: Performing Blackness in Toronto.” Histoire sociale / Social History vol. 55, no. 114 (December 2022) 399-416.

2022

Andrea A. Davis and Elaine Coburn, “Editorial Statement.” Journal of Canadian Studies 55:2 (Summer 2021) 231-233.

2021

Andrea A. Davis and Leslie Sanders. “Editorial Introduction: Celebrating Austin Clarke—the Man and the Body of His Work.” Celebrating Austin Clarke—the Man and the Body of His Work, special issue of TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 42 (spring 2021) 1- 4.

2021

Andrea A. Davis, “Which Scandalous Bodies? Black Women Writers Refuse Nation Narratives.” Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review 243 (fall 2020) 146-152.

2020

Andrea A. Davis, “Un/Belonging in Diasporic Cities: A Literary History of Caribbean Women in London and Toronto.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 13 (June 2019) 17-50.

2019

Andrea A. Davis, "The Black Woman Native Speaking Subject: Reflections of a Black Female Professor in Canada." Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture and Social Justice 39.1 (2018): 70-78.

2018

Andrea A. Davis, “‘The Real Toronto’: Black Youth Experiences and the Narration of the Multicultural City Journal of Canadian Studies 51:3 (Fall 2017) 725-748.

2017

James, Carl E. and Andrea Davis, “Instructive Episodes: The Shifting Positions of the Jamaican Diaspora in Canada.” Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean 14:1 (spring 2012) 1-26. (published fall 2015)

2015

James, Carl E. and Andrea Davis, “Jamaican Males’ Readings of Masculinities and the Relationship to Violence.” Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, Vulnerability, Persistence and Destabilization of Dominant Masculinities, ed. Crichlow et al, 8 (December 2014) 79-112.

2014

Andrea Davis, "Black Canadian Literature as Diaspora Transgression: The Second Life of Samuel Tyne." TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. Ed. Jenny Burman. Spec. issue of Diasporic Pasts and Futures: Transnational Cultural Studies in Canada 17 (Spring 2007): 31-49.

2007

Andrea Davis, "Translating Narratives of Masculinity Across Borders: A Jamaican Case Study." Caribbean Quarterly. Ed. Taitu Heron and Hilary Nicholson. Spec issue of Unraveling Gender, Development and Civil Society in the Caribbean 52.2-3 (June-Sept. 2006): 22-38.

2006

Andrea Davis, "We Have Historically Been ‘Rooted’ in/Routed to this Place and we are Here to Stay: Women’s Voices in Black Canadian Literature." NEW DAWN: Journal of Black Canadian Studies 1.1 (Spring 2006): 68-74.

2006

Andrea Davis, "Diaspora, Citizenship and Gender: Challenging the Myth of the Nation in African Canadian Women’s Literature."Canadian Woman Studies 23.2 (2004): 64-69.

2004

Public Lectures

Publication
Year

“Black Tax and the Invisible Labour of Black Women in the Academy,” Scholar Strike Canada digital teach-in, moderated by Michele Johnson, September 10, 2020.

2020

Farah Nasser (host), “Living in Colour: Why ignoring Canada’s anti-Black racism affects
Black Canadians today.” Global News, June 12, 2020. Television.

2020

Forthcoming

Publication
Year

Davis, Andrea A. and Leslie Sanders (eds). The Routledge Handbook to Black Canadian Literature (expected publication fall 2024)


Other

Publication
Year

“York’s Andrea Davis says Congress 2023 theme had to be ‘reckonings and re-imaginings.’”
News@York, 22 February 2023.

2023


Current Courses

Term Course Number Section Title Type
Fall/Winter 2023 AP/HUMA1300 9.0 A Cultures of Resistance in the Americas LECT