Overview
Carole Boyce Davies is Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters and Professor of Africana Studies and Literatures in English. She has held distinguished professorships at a number of institutions, including the Herskovits Professor of African Studies and Professor of Comparative Literary Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject (Routledge, 1994) and Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones (Duke University Press, 2008). In addition to numerous scholarly articles, Boyce Davies has also published the following critical anthologies: Ngambika: Studies of Women in African Literature (Africa World Press, 1986); Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean Women and Literature (Africa World Press, 1990); and a two-volume collection of critical and creative writing entitled Moving Beyond Boundaries (New York University Press, 1995): International Dimensions of Black Women’s Writing (volume 1), and Black Women’s Diasporas (volume 2). She is co-editor with Ali Mazrui and Isidore Okpewho of The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities (Indiana University Press, 1999) and Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies (Africa World Press, 2003). She is general editor of the three-volume, The Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora (Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 2008), and of Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment: Autobiography, Essays, Poetry (Banbury: Ayebia, 2011). More recent work include Caribbean Spaces: Escape Routes from Twilight Zones (Illinois, 2013) and a children’s book, Walking (EducaVision, 2016) and the forthcoming Circularities of Power. Black Women's Right to Political Leadership (Lexington Books - Rowman and Littlefield, 2022). A member of the scientific committee for UNESCO’s updated General History of Africa, she edited the epistemological forum on “Global Blackness” for the African Diaspora volume. She is a past-president of the Caribbean Studies Association which organized under her leadership the first CSA Conference in Haiti in 2016. Her popular essays and reviews have been published in media including The Washington Post, The Crisis, Ms Magazine, Ithaca Journal, The Black Scholar, Miami Herald, Trinidad Guardian and Trinidad Express.
Research and Teaching Interests
African diaspora studies
Black women's writing (internationally)
Comparative black literature
African literature
Caribbean oral and written literature
Transnational feminist theory
Black women and political leadership in the African Diaspora
Languages
English - fluent; Portuguese - conversational
Research Focus
- An ongoing study of black women and political leadership in their own words. Interviews with black women who are political leaders and an examination of their paths to leadership and once there, how they use their power for the advancement of relevant communities.
In the news
- Harvard historian to deliver Munday lecture
- Book: Time for Black women to claim the right to lead
- Scholar offers talk about Brazilian crackdowns and feminist response
- What to read in 2022? A&S faculty weigh in
- Africana studies class produces political leaders podcast
- Africana Studies course explores Black women leaders through podcasts
- Cornell community honors Toni Morrison with “The Bluest Eye” reading
- Authors, poets, scholars celebrate Morrison in ‘Bluest Eye’ reading & teach-in
- Considerations about language and presenting ‘The Bluest Eye:’ A critical discussion
- 30 Arts & Sciences faculty honored with endowed professorships
- Harris VP pick emblematic of surge in black women leaders
- New podcast episode explores racism and resilience
- Lived Experience
- Fulbright scholar engages with indigenous communities
- Unheard Voices, Made Known and Amplified
- Students have eye-opening experiences on Cuba trip
- Grants fund 22 Cornell teams, community partners
- Africana symposium honored Locksley Edmondson
- Prof. Boyce Davies to receive Lifetime Achievement Award