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

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 ).

Month: Jun   Year: 2020

Month: Jun   Year: 2023

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.

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.

Month: Sep   Year: 2020

Month: Dec   Year: 2024

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.

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.

Month: Jul   Year: 2011

Month: Apr   Year: 2014