SA Smythe, PhD

Dr. SA Smythe (they / them) is an artist, educator, and critical theorist committed to black belonging beyond all borders and studying how archives of otherwise possibility come to be narrated, realised, and remembered. Formerly a professor in the Depts. of Gender Studies and African American Studies at UCLA, Smythe joined the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information as Assistant Professor of Black Studies and the Archive in July 2022, where they are founding director of the Collaboratory for Black Poiesis. They are the editor of the forthcoming Transnational Black Studies (Liverpool University Press) and Troubling the Grounds: Global Configurations of Blackness, Nativism, and Indigeneity special issue for Postmodern Culture. They are author of the forthcoming monograph, Where Blackness Meets the Sea: On Crisis, Culture, and the Black Mediterranean and the poetry collection-cum-sound art installation and performance series, [proclivity]. Smythe has organised with students and other comrades in the broader Cops Off Campus Coalition and other abolitionist and migrant support groups across Turtle Island, Europe, and the Mediterranean. Their transmedia artwork has been featured in collaborative and solo exhibitions, installations, and festivals. Winner of the 2022 Rome Prize, Smythe is currently based between Rome, Tkaronto, and occupied Tongva land (Los Angeles). They are a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies and they serve on the advisory council of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2).

cover images 📸: Sorrell Scrutton &

former image: Finnish-Nigerian photographer Uwa Iduozee