Dr. Andrea Davis 

Dr. Andrea A. Davis is Professor, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University. Most recently, she served as special advisor on the Faculty’s Anti-Black Racism Strategy, as part of the Faculty’s comprehensive response to combating anti-Black racism.

A former Canadian commonwealth scholar, Dr. Davis’s research is rooted in anti-racist feminism and analyzes questions of race and gender through a focus on the literary and cultural productions of Black women. Her forthcoming book, Horizon, Sea, Sound: Caribbean and African Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation imagines new reciprocal relationships among Black, Indigenous and other racialized women, and offers new reflections on the relationship between the Caribbean and Canada. Her interdisciplinary SSHRC partnership development grant on the effects of violence on Black youth was profiled in the 2012-2013 Research Matters Campaign by the Council of Ontario Universities. 

Dr. Davis established and coordinates the Black Canadian Studies Certificate at York and is an award-winning teacher, most recently receiving a 2021 3M National Teaching Fellowship. She is co-editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies, former Chair of the Department of Humanities, and former academic colleague on the Council of Ontario Universities. 

She has been involved with Congress since 2006. As academic convenor, she brings a track record as a champion of the liberal and fine arts; and a strong commitment to centering social justice, anti-racism and decolonial scholarship in the humanities, and to increasing the representation of diverse and historically underrepresented voices in Canadian research.