Speaker Series: Why Canada Matters - guest speaker Dr. Debra Thompson, McGill University, Montreal Canada

Presentation Title: Roots, Routes, and Reckonings: On Blackness and Belonging in North America

Dr. Debra Thompson is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies at McGill University. She is a leading scholar of the comparative politics of race, with teaching and research interests that focus on the relationships among race, the state, and inequality in Canada and other democratic societies.

This lecture journeys back and forth across the Canada/US border, and from coast to coast, combining memoir and analysis to highlight the tensions, contradictions, translations, and complications that anchor our understandings of race. Across time and space, this research asks: where is home for those of African descent, and is belonging within the confines of the nation-state either possible or desirable?