A Project Toward Black Life

Teaching Black Studies in the Humanities

Bibliographic Data

ID21665666
AuthorsAndrea A Davis (York University, Keele Campus, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume47
Pages224-233
Publication date2023-09-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTOPIA Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1206-0143 • E-ISSN: 1916-0194
PublisherUniversity of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3138/topia-2023-0018
OpenAlexW4387805129
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited3

By primarily locating the study of Black people through the lens of victimhood and pathology, university research and teaching often reinforce the notion of Blackness as social, cultural, and economic deficit. Centring Black ideas, art, and imagination as critical to a reformulation of the racist logic of Western thought offers a model for engaging the histories of Black peoples in Canada that exceeds a simple anti-racism lens. Invoking the early 19th-century debate about Black education between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois and drawing on lessons learned through the creation of a Black Canadian Studies Certificate at York University in Toronto, Canada, this article suggests that positioning Black studies within the humanities offers a different set of theoretical paradigms for thinking about human relationships and human possibilities. Understanding Black studies as a project toward, and not against, Black life reveals the critical role Black studies plays both in transforming the core character of universities and the societies in which we live

Art · Black British · Black culture · Black feminism · Feminism · Humanities · Racism · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Gender Studies · Race, History, and American Society · Short Stories in Global Literature

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