Curriculum Vitae (2024)
EDUCATION, DISTINCTIONS & HONOURS
Ph.D. Communication Studies, McGill University, QC, 2015 Dissertation: Race and beauty in Canada: print culture, retail, and the transnational flow of products, images and ideologies, 1700s to present
M.A. Communication & Culture, TMU/York University, ON, 2007 Thesis: Situating Hybridity and Searching for Authenticity in Canadian Hip-Hop: How do we ‘keep it real’?
B.A. Honours Criminology, University of Windsor, ON, 2001
Member, Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, 2021–2026
ACADEMIC & RESEARCH POSITIONS
Tier 2 Canada Research Chair, Black Expressive Culture & Creativity, 2024 - ongoing
Director, Black Creative Lab, 2021 - ongoing
Director, Research and Creative Strategy, Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA), 2021 - ongoing
Associate Professor, Performance, The Creative School, TMU, 2023 -
Assistant Professor, Performance, The Creative School, TMU, 2022-23
Assistant Professor, Creative Industries, The Creative School, TMU, 2018-2021
Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Theatre, Drama & Performance Studies, University of Toronto (UofT) and Department of English and Drama, University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), 2016-18
Lecturer, Department of Visual Studies, UTM, 2015-18
Lecturer, Canadian Studies Program, UofT, 2015-18
SELECTED NON-SCHOLARLY WORKS
Thompson, Cheryl. (28 November 2024). “Cuts to international students left colleges and universities scrambling. This is what they should be doing instead.” Toronto Star.
Thompson, Cheryl. (17 April 2023). “Why equity, diversity, and inclusion offices are failing us.” Toronto Star.
Thompson, Cheryl "What’s in a Name? The Jamaican Patty Controversy". In What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings, edited by John Lorinc, 173-177. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2022.
Thompson, Cheryl. "My Ten-Year Dreadlock Journey: Why I Love the ‘kink’ in My Hair… Today.”. In Body Battlegrounds: Transgressions, Tensions, and Transformations, edited by Samantha Kwan and Chris Bobel. 54-55. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2019.
Thompson, Cheryl. “Remembering Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” In The Ward Uncovered: The Archaeology of Everyday Life, edited by Michael McClelland, Holly Martelle, Tatum Taylor, and John Lorinc, 156-62. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2018.
Thompson, Cheryl. “Black Women and Identity: What’s Hair Got to Do With It?”. Michigan Feminist Studies. 22 (2009): 78-90.
SELECTED LITERARY WORKS
Thompson, Cheryl. (6 March 2023). “Refashioning Canada.” Canada’s History. February/March issue.
Thompson, Cheryl. "Casting Blackface in Canada: Unmasking the History of 'White and Black' Minstrel Shows." Canadian Theatre Review. 193 (2023): 16-20. doi.org/10.3138/ctr.193.004
Thompson, Cheryl. (7 February 2022). “Shear Style.” Canada’s History. 102(2): 20-27.
Thompson, Cheryl. (Summer 2022). “Dismantling the Myth of the Hero.” Geist Magazine. 119: 54-57.
Thompson, Cheryl. “The Show Did Go On: How Theatre Changed After the Last Pandemic.” Canadian Theatre Review. 127 (2022): 91-93. doi.org/10.3138/ctr.187.027
Thompson, Cheryl. (22 July 2020). “Hashtags and Memes are the New Black Power Salute.” Room Magazine. 44(1): 34-43.
Thompson, Cheryl. (21 March 2021). “On Fighting For Space in the Literary World as a Black Canadian Writer.” Literary Hub.
CURATORIAL EVENTS
“Artists and Archivists in Dialogue,” MOBA’s 2-Day Conference and Artist Showcase, September 21-22, 2023.
“Refashioning Canada: Past and Future,” Window Display, The Creative School Catalyst, TMU, February 13-28, 2023, in collaboration with Caron Phinney.
CONTENT CREATION AND APPEARANCES
Executive producer, Narrator, Appearance. Blackface Nation (Dir. Evan King, Pink Moon Studio), forthcoming.
Executive Producer, Creative Lead, Narrator. Enna Kim (Video Editor), Mel Racho (Video Editor). Black Creative Lab YouTube Channel.
Digital content creator, Creative Lead, Blackface Resistance Entertainment in Canada (BREC), a research site and archive.
Expert Appearance. Subjects of Desire (Dir. Jennifer Holness, Hungry Eyes Media), 2022.
Collaborative Partner, Gold Series #MyHairMyStory campaign Campaign (Dir. Shonna Foster, MLS Group, a Procter & Gamble Company), 2021.
Black History Month Programming, TMU, “Black Arts, Culture & Heritage” (2019), “Talking Black Studies” (2022)
Credit: Calla Evans
SELECTED EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL GRANTS & AWARDS
Canada Research Chair, Tier 2 ($600,000), “Black Expressive Culture and Creativity,” 2024-ongoing
SSHRC Insight Grant ($263,779), “Assessing the Social Capital of Ontario's Archives and the Possibilities for 'Third Places,’” 2023-29
SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant ($29,817), “Cross-disciplinary Analysis Towards Devising a Methodology for Digital Black Archival Collections,” 2023-24
New Collaborations Grant ($6,000), “Building a digital asset management (DAM) prototype system for Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA),” The Creative School, collaborator Reem El Asaleh (Graphic Communication Management) and service provider Terentia, 2023-24
Ontario Arts Council (OAC) Skills and Career Development: Indigenous Arts Professionals and Arts Professionals of Colour Grant ($9,500). “Conducting Research in Theatre Archives in Southwestern Ontario,” 2024
Toronto Arts Council (TAC) Grant ($10,000), “Black Creative Practices: Aesthetics, Expressive Cultures, and the Blurred Lines of Cultural Ownership,” 2023
SSHRC Partnership Development Grant ($171,886.90), “Mapping the Music Industries: Creating an Equity-Informed Framework for Community-Led Cultural Production,” co-investigator with Miranda Campbell, 2023-26
Teaching and Learning Grant ($10,726), “Creating a Digital Textbook for Black Studies Course Delivery,” Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, TMU, 2023-24
SSHRC Connection Grant ($42,336), “Creating Public Access to Black Archives and the Performing Arts,” 2022-23
Centenary Initiative Grant ($2000), "Uncovering Toronto’s Black Fashion History," Canadian Historical Association, 2022-23
Early Researcher Award, Ontario Government ($190,000), “Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives: Building An Inventory Through Storytelling,” 2021-26
SSHRC Connection Grant ($47,625), “White Skin, Black Masks: Canada's Blackface Secret,” co-applicant Pink Moon Studio, 2020-22
SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($48,072), “Newspapers, Minstrelsy and Black Performance at the Theatre: Mapping the Spaces of Nation-Building in Toronto, 1870s to 1930s,” 2019-22
Scholarly Research Creation (SRC) Seed Grant ($6880), Faculty of Communication and Design, “Newspapers, Theatres, and the Spaces of Black Performance in Toronto,” 2019
SSHRC-Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship ($140,000), University of Toronto and the University of Toronto Mississauga, “Visualizing Blackface Minstrelsy in Canada: Seeing Race, Negotiating Identities, 1890-1959,” 2016-18
SCHOLARLY AND LITERARY BOOKS
Thompson, Cheryl. Canada and the Blackface Atlantic: Performing Slavery, Conflict, and Freedom, 1812 - 1897. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press (forthcoming, April 2025).
Thompson, Cheryl. Staging Blackface in Canada: Musicals, Sound Recording, and Theatrical Dance in the Age of Imitation, 1898 - 1919. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press (in-press).
Thompson, Cheryl. Blackface Nation: Anti-Blackness in Canada’s Communities: 1920–1997. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press (writing).
Thompson, Cheryl and Campbell, Miranda. (Eds.). Creative Industries in Canada. Vancouver: Canadian Scholars Press, 2022.
Thompson, Cheryl. Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2021.
Thompson, Cheryl. Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2019.
SELECTED BOOK CHAPTERS
Thompson, Cheryl. “The Coachella ‘Way of Life’: Music Festival as Branded Paratext and Aesthetic.” In Ripple Effects: The Active Histories and Possible Futures of Music Festivals, edited by Eric Fillion and Ajay Heble, 163-85. Philadelphia: Temple University Press (in-press)
Thompson, Cheryl. “Brand Advertising in Contrast in the 1970s: Selling Race and Culture Through Beer.” In Canada’s 19th Century Black Press: Roots and Trajectories of Exceptional Communication and Intellectual Activism, edited by Claudine Bonner, Nina Reid-Maroney, and Boulou Ebanda de B'béri. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (in-press)
Thompson, Cheryl. “Contrast and Share: Reading Black Lives in Black Photojournalism in 1970s 'Multicultural' Toronto.” In Call and Response-ability: Black Canadian Works of Art and the Politics of Relation, edited by Karina Vernon and Winfried Siemerling. Montreal-Kingston: Mcgill-Queen's University Press (in-press)
Thompson, Cheryl & Wowk, Lucy. “The Globe and Daily Star Report on Spanish Flu, 1918-19: Reading Toronto’s Response to the Pandemic’s Second Wave”. In Pandemics & Epidemics in Cultural Representation, edited by Sathyaraj Venkatesan, et al., 107-120. London: Springer Nature, 2022.
Thompson, Cheryl & Crooks, Julie. “Race, Community, and the Picturing of Identities: Photography and the Black Subject in Ontario, 1860 to 1900”. In Unsettling the Great White North: African Canadian History, edited by Michele Johnson and Funké Aladejebi, 433-54. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022.
Thompson, Cheryl. “Representing Misogynoir in Canadian News Media: From BLMTO to Marci Ien” In Women in Popular Culture in Canada, edited by Laine Zisman Newman, 26-41. Vancouver: Canadian Scholars/Women’s Press, 2020.
Thompson, Cheryl. "An Intersectional Analysis of Controlling Images and Neoliberal Meritocracy on Scandal and Empire." In Neoliberalism and the U.S. Media, edited by Marian Joanne Meyers, 176-91. New York: Routledge, 2019.
Thompson, Cheryl. "Come One, Come All’: Blackface Minstrelsy as a Canadian Tradition and Early Form of Popular Culture". In Towards an African-Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance, edited by Charmaine Nelson, 95-121. Concord, ON: Captus Press, 2018.
Thompson, Cheryl. (2018). "The New Afro in a Postfeminist Media Culture: Rachel Dolezal, Beyoncé’s ‘Formation,’ and the Politics of Choice". In Emergent Feminisms: Challenging a Post-Feminist Media Culture, edited by Jessalynn Keller and Maureen Ryan, 161-75. New York: Routledge, 2018.
SELECTED JOURNAL ARTICLES
Thompson, Cheryl. “Toronto’s 1993 Production of Show Boat: Revisiting the Roots of the Black Community’s Protests.” Theatre Research in Canada/Recherches théâtrales au Canada (TRIC/RTAC) Special Issue on Black Performance in Canada. 45.2 (2024): 212–31. doi.org/10.3138/tric-2023-0025
Thompson, Cheryl. “Black Canadians in the Canadian Journal of Communication: A critical reading of language and voice in its publishing history." Canadian Journal of Communication Special Issue, "On the Margins of the Margins: Racism and Colonialism in Canadian Communication Studies." 47.3 (2022): 440-61. doi.org/10.3138/cjc.2022-0029
Thompson, Cheryl. “Black Minstrelsy on Canadian Stages: Nostalgia for Plantation Slavery in the 19th and 20th Centuries.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association. 31.1 (2021): 67-94. doi.org/10.7202/1083628ar
Thompson, Cheryl. “Visualizing the Presence of Blackness in Canada’s West: Reading the Glenbow’s and Breton Museum’s Black Exhibitions.” Journal of Critical Race Inquiry. 8.1. (2021): 22-41. jcri.ca/index.php/CRI/article/view/14003
Thompson, Cheryl. “Black Canada and Why the Archival Logic of Memory Needs Reform.” Les Ateliers de l'éthique/Ethics Forum, special issue The Ethical Challenges of Recovering Historical Memory. 14.2 (2020): 76-106. doi.org/10.3138/cras.2017.032
Thompson, Cheryl. “From Venus to ‘Black Venus’: Beyoncé’s I Have Three Hearts, Fashion and the Limits of Visual Culture.” Fashion Studies. 3.1 (2020): 1-24. www.fashionstudies.ca/from-venus-to-black-venus
Thompson, Cheryl. “Locating ‘Dixie’ in Newspaper Discourse and Theatrical Performance in Toronto, 1880s to 1920s.” Canadian Review of American Studies. 49.2 (2019): 205-25. doi.org/10.3138/cras.2017-032
Thompson, Cheryl. “Rethinking the Archive in the Public Sphere.” Canadian Journal of History /Annales canadiennes d’histoire, Roundtable on History for Non-Historians. 54.1-2 (2019): 32-38. doi.org/10.3138/cjh.ach.54.1-2.0
Thompson, Cheryl. "Searching for Black Voices in Canada’s Archives: The Invisibility of a ‘Visible’ Minority." PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas, Special Issue on Archive/Anarchive/Counter-Archive. (2018): 82-89. intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/public.29.57.88_1
Thompson, Cheryl. "I’s in Town, Honey’: Reading Aunt Jemima Advertising in Canadian Print Media, 1919 to 1962.” Journal of Canadian Studies. 49.1 (2015): 205-37. doi.org/10.3138/jcs.49.1.205
Thompson, Cheryl. "Cultivating Narratives of Race, Faith, and Community: The Dawn of Tomorrow, 1923–1971.” Canadian Journal of History. 50.1 (2015): 30-67. doi.org/10.3138/cjh.50.1.30.
Thompson, Cheryl. "Neoliberalism, Soul Food, and the Weight of Black Women." Feminist Media Studies. 15.5 (2015): 794-812. doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2014.1003390
Thompson, Cheryl. “Black Women and Hair as a Matter of Being.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 38.8 (2009): 831-56. doi.org/10.1080/00497870903238463
SCHOLARLY BOOK REVIEWS
Statesman of the Piano: Jazz, Race, and History in the life of Lou Hooper. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Canadian Historical Review. 105.2 (2024): 322–24. https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.105.2.br14
American Capitalism’s Role in South African Beauty Culture. American Historical Review. 128.4 (2023): 1824-1826, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhad440
The Rise and Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Barnett's Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox. Canadian Journal of History. 53.3 (2018): 576-78.
Viola Desmond’s Canada: A History of Blacks and Racial Segregation in the Promised Land. Canadian Journal of History. 52.1 (2017): 145-47.
Black Women’s Portrayals on Reality Television: The New Sapphire. Journal of Communication. 66 (2016): E5–E7.