Conference Papers Since 1991
“Notes Toward a Preface for ‘The Intellectual History of Black Atlantic Canadian Peoples.’” Keynote address. Uncovering the Hidden Histories of Black Communities in Atlantic Canada.” Dalhousie University, Halifax (NS), April 24, 2025.
“Notations on Significant Descendants of Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse…!” With Ms. Titilola Aiyegbusi. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences: Sustaining Shared Futures. Canadian Comparative Literature Association. Panel: Cancel Culture. Université de Montréal, Montréal (QC), June 15, 2024. (GEC attended by Zoom.)
“A Guide to the (Primary) Literary Artifacts in the Nova Scotia Slavery Museum.” Slavery, Reparations and Education: African Nova Scotia, Canada and Beyond: Universities Studying Slavery Conference. Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, October 21, 2023.
“On ‘Silencing’ as Affective Censorship and ‘Cancellation’ as Repressive Empathy.” Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences: Reckonings & Re-Imaginings. Canadian Comparative Literature Association. Panel: Rhetoric of Trauma. York University, Toronto (ON), May 30, 2023.
“For Cryin Out Loud: Moanin Sorrow and and Talkin Regret in Ezra Pound’s The Pisan Cantos and M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!” Presented at the 134th Annual Modern Languages Association Convention, Session 580, “Sweet Home Chicago? Rethinking Blues literature,” at Chicago, Illinois, on January 5, 2019.
“Juxtaposing Ho Che Anderson’s Italian References and Quentin Tarantino’s Blaxploitation Interests, or the Intertext as Miscegenation.” Black Canadian Studies Association Conference. Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, May 26, 2013.
Irving Layton Symposium Roundtable: “Some Little Anthologized Poems that Deserve Greater Anthologization; or, Towards an Expansion of Fornalutx.” Department of English, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, May 5, 2013.
“Three Africville Novels: A Discourse on Race and Place.” Cultural Challenges of Migration in Canada. International Council for Canadian Studies, Carlton University, Ottawa, Ontario, May 24, 2012.
“Ian Fleming’s Canadian Cities and their Roles in International Espionage in the Bond Novels.” The Glocal City in Canadian Literature. Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, June 7, 2011.
“Reading the Giallo in African-Canadian Literature.” The Canadian Cultural Mosaic as Metaphor: Representations and Transformations of Literary, Musical, Visual, and Decorative Art Forms in Canada. Universita degli Studi di Udine, Centro di Cultura Canadese, Udine, Italy, April 28, 2011.
“My Trudeau: The Politics of Adapting a Political Icon for the Operatic Stage.” Voice & Vision: Situating Canadian Culture Globally. L’Institut du Monde Anglophone, Université Paris 3-Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France, May 22, 2008.
“Toward a Multicultural and Multiracial Canada: A Manifesto.” From Multicultural Rhetoric to Anti-Racist Action. Munk Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, October 27, 2007.
“Trudeaumania as a Displacement of Revolutionary Consciousness in 1968 Canada.” The Sixties and the Shaping of Global Consciousness. Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, June 13, 2007.
“Speaking for Myself: The Device of ‘The Symposium’ in the Drama of Trey Anthony and Louise Delisle.” The Third Triennial AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival. University College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, August 23, 2006.
“Strategies for Legitimizing Difference: Mixed-Race Resistance in the Works of Andrea Thompson and Lorena Gale, Two African-Canadian Writers.” Ties That Bind: Accommodating Complex Diversity in Canada and the European Union. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. November 18, 2005.
“Towards a Pedagogy of African-Canadian Literature.” “Who are We? Otherness in Canadian Studies.” A symposium in celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. McGill University, Montreal, QC. March 11, 2005.
“Seeing Through Race: Surveillance of Black Males in Jessome; Surveying Black Masculinity in James.” Canadian American Research Symposium. United States Immigration Museum. Ellis Island. New York, New York. September 10, 2004.
“What Colour Is the Voice?” Transcultural Improvisations: Performing Hybridity. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia. October 16-19, 2003.
“Strategies for Legitimizing Difference: Mixed-Race Resistance in the Works of Andrea Thompson and Lorena Gale, Two African-Canadian Writers.” Trans/cultural Translators: Mediating Race, Indigeneity, Ethnicity in Four Nations. The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy. August 7, 2003.
“The Afro-Caribbean Heritage of African-Canadian Literature, or The Ironies of Rootless Transplantation.” International Canadian Studies Association. Université du Québec à Montréal. Montréal, QC. May 25, 2003.
“The Afro-Caribbean Heritage of African-Canadian Literature, or The Ironies of Rootless Transplantation.” The African Atlantic: The Making of Black Diasporas. Collegium for African American Research and King Alfred’s College. Winchester, England. April 14, 2003.
“Invisible Insurgency?: The Black Arts Movement in Canada, 1968-1978.” Engaging North America: Illuminating Black Canada, An International Scholars Conference. Institute for African American Research. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, NC. April 2, 2003.
“Locating the Early Dionne Brand: Landing a Voice.” Keynote Address. Literary and Cultural Inquiries: 4th Annual Graduate Student Conference in Comparative Canadian Literature. Université de Sherbrooke. Sherbrooke, Québec. March 29, 2003.
“Reading Africana, or The Americanization of Africa and Its Diaspora.” American Studies Conference. Bogazici University. Istanbul, Turkey. March 7, 2003.
“Invisible Insurgency?: The Black Arts Movement in Canada, 1968-1978.” American Studies Association. Houston, Texas. November 15, 2002.
“Locating the Early Dionne Brand: Landing a Voice.” Symposium on Book and Print Culture. University of Toronto. May 28, 2002.
“Let Us Compare Anthologies: Roman Candles and Canada In Us Now, or Reading ‘Ethnic’ and ‘Racial’ Rhetorical Strategies Regarding Canadian Multiculturalism in the 1970s.” Keynote Address. Association for Italian Canadian Writers. Toronto, Ontario. May 27, 2002.
“Gynocentric Darwinism in the African-Canadian Drama of George Boyd and Djanet Sears.” Theatre and Exile Conference. Graduate Centre for the Study of Drama. University of Toronto, March 22, 2002.
“The Africadian/African-Nova Scotian Family in Slaveholding Nova Scotia, 1713-1834.” On the Margins of Family. Coach House, Dundurn Castle, McMaster University. April 30-May 1, 2001.
"Racing Shelley's The Cenci, or Reading Incest as Slavery." Romanticism and the New. North American Society for the Study of Romanticism. University of King's College. Halifax, Nova Scotia. August 12, 1999.
"African-Canadian Variations on Slave Narratives: A Meditation on the Rhetoric of Braithwaite, Hill, and Brown." African-American Rhetoric: Tradition and Innovation. Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada (HSSFC). Bishop's University. Lennoxville, Québec. June 5, 1999.
"Africadians." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States: ACSUS-in-Canada Colloquium. Halifax, Nova Scotia. June 26, 1998.
"Eroticism and the Quest for 'Mother Tongue' in Claire Harris, M. Nourbese Philip, and Dionne Brand." Association for Canadian Studies in the United States: 14th Biennial Meeting. Minneapolis, Minnesota. November 20, 1997.
"The Race Against Erasure: The Defensive Strategies of African-Canadian Culture." African Canadian Space(s) and Place(s): Public Cultures and the (Re) Colouring of the National Landscape. American Studies Association Conference. Washington, D.C. October 31, 1997.
"Syl Cheney-Coker's Nova Scotia, or The Limits of Pan-Africanism." New Currents in the North Atlantic: Emerging Scholarship on Atlantic Canada. Atlantic Canada Workshop. Public Archives of Nova Scotia. Halifax, Nova Scotia. August 16, 1997.
"Getting the Word Out: Self-Publication and the Development of African-Canadian Literature." The History of the Book in Canada/Histoire de l'imprimé au Canada. National Library of Canada/Bibliothèque nationale du Canada. Ottawa, Ontario. May 24, 1997.
"The Future of Poetry: Embracing the Populist Poetics of Amiri Baraka and Ntzoake Shange." Reconcilable (In) Differences: The Marriage Between Writers and Theorists. University of Denver. Denver, Colorado. April 5, 1997.
"What Is Canadian About African-Canadian Literature and Why Should It Matter?" Association for Canadian Studies in the United States Colloquium: North America in the 21st Century: Perspectives on Autonomy, Exchange, and Integration. Toronto, Ontario, November 8, 1996.
"Autumn Leaves/Les Feuilles mortes: Constructions of France in the Work of African-American Jazz Musicians." Harvard University, W. E. B. DuBois Institute and Centre d'études afro-americaines, Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle. La Sorbonne, Paris, France, 26 avril, 1996.
"Must All Blackness Be American?: Locating Canada in Borden's 'Tightrope Time', or Nationalizing Gilroy's The Black Atlantic." Association for Canadian Studies in the U.S.: 13th Biennial Meeting. Seattle, Washington. November 16, 1995.
"Post-Colonial Yearning and Frustration in Austin Clarke's Short Fiction." Race, Gender, and the Construction of Canada. University of British Columbia. October 20, 1995.
"Souls on Ice: Reading Black and White in Contemporary Québécois Literature." Windy Pines Colloquium on Race and Ethnicity in Canadian Literature. Trent University, Peterborough Ontario. August 25, 1995.
"Liberalism and Its Discontents: Reading Black and White in Contemporary Québécois Literature." Association for Canadian and Québécois Literature. Université du Québec à Montréal. June 2, 1995.
"Cool Politics: Styles of Honour in Malcolm X and Miles Davis." Popular Culture Association, Silver Anniversary Meeting. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. April 14, 1995.
"The Symbol of Africville in Africadian Culture." Popular Culture Association, Silver Anniversary Meeting. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. April 15, 1995.
"White Niggers, Black Slaves: The Construction of Racial Identity in Haliburton's The Clockmaker." Association for Canadian and Québécois Literature Session. Learned Societies' Convention. Carleton University. June 1993.
"Towards a Conservative Modernity: Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Acadian and Africadian Poetry." Southwest Association for Canadian Studies Conference. Southwestern Louisiana University. February 1993.
"A First Portrait of Africadian Literature." Political Economy of Region. Atlantic Canada Workshop. Carleton University. Ottawa, Ontario. August 1991.