Courageous Conversations Speaker Series

This panel examines how the politics of race and settler colonialism are presently negotiated by, and within, Canadian universities. The decades of privatization and deregulation in the late twentieth century initiated a far-reaching transformation of the public sector, including institutions of post-secondary education. While the effects of funding cuts to education have been much studied, far less attention has been paid to the impact of these structural rearrangements on the relations of race and on the institution. The presenters on this panel assess the on the construction and relations of race within the institution.

Dr. Delia D. Douglas holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her scholarship is interdisciplinary and is attentive to the continuing significance of the legacies of enslavement, imperialism and settler colonialism. Her research and teaching interests consider struggles for social justice with a focus on critical race and gender studies, Black diaspora studies, equity and higher education, and sport studies. She is the Anti-Racism Practice Lead for the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.

Dr. Enakshi Dua is a Professor and Graduate Director in Sexuality and Women’s Studies in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. She teaches critical race theory, anti-racist feminist theory, post colonial studies and feminist theory.

Dr. annie ross is an Indigenous teacher and artist working within community inside the Canadian west. Dr. ross is a Professor in the Department of First Nations Studies at Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Sunera Thobani is Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her scholarship focuses on critical race, postcolonial and feminist theory; globalization, media, citizenship and migration; and violence, Muslim women and the War on Terror.