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 ContextGina Thésée Part Two: Blackness and Academic PathwaysCommentary on Part II: Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Challenges, Contestations, and Contradictions Wisdom J. Tettey 6. Hidden Figures: Black Scholars in the Early Canadian AcademyMalinda 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 ConversationCommentary 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 FuturityCommentary 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 BodyDelores 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

"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."