Rinaldo Walcott

University of Toronto

Rinaldo Walcott is Professor of Black Diaspora Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He recently served as the Director of the Women and Gender Studies Institute, where he holds his appointment. He is also a member of the Department of Social Justice Education at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; and he is a member of the Graduate Program at the Institute of Cinema Studies as well. His teaching and research is in the area of black diaspora cultural studies and postcolonial studies with an emphasis on questions of sexuality, gender, nation, citizenship and multiculturalism. From 2002-2007 Rinaldo held the Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies where his research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust. 

Rinaldo Walcott is the author of Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada (Insomniac Press, 1997 with a second revised edition in 2003); he is also the editor of Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism (Insomniac, 2000); Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies (Insomniac, 2016). With Idil Abdillahi, BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom (ARP Books, 2019). As well Rinaldo is the Co-editor with Roy Moodley of Counselling Across and Beyond Cultures: Exploring the Work of Clemment Vontress in Clinical Practice (University of Toronto Press, 2010). He co-edits Topia: The Journal of Canadian Cultural Studies.

 As an interdisciplinary Black Studies scholar Rinaldo has published in a wide range of venues. His articles have appeared in journals and books, as well as popular venues like newspapers, magazines and online venues, as well as other forms of media. He has two books forthcoming: The Long Emancipation: Moving Towards Black Freedom Duke University Press in 2021; and “There is no mystery about what is taking place in our society”: On Black Resistance, Property and the Future of Abolition (Biblioasis, 2021).

He was born in Barbados.