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Carole Boyce Davies
Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters
Overview
Carole Boyce Davies is a professor of English and Africana Studies. 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). Her most recent monograph is Caribbean Spaces: Escape Routes from Twilight Zones (Illinois, 2013) and a children’s book, Walking (EducaVision, 2016).
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
Departments/Programs
- Africana Studies and Research Center
- Literatures in English
- Latina/o Studies Program
Graduate Fields
- Africana Studies
- English Language and Literature
- Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Research
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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.
Courses
Spring 2021
- ASRC 1500 : Introduction to Africana Studies
- ASRC 4901 : Honors Thesis
- ASRC 4903 : Independent Study
- ASRC 6207 : Black Feminist Theories: Sexuality, Creativity, and Power
- ASRC 6901 : Independent Study