Academic Bio

SA Smythe is a critical theorist and multi-instrumentalist working at the University of Toronto as associate professor of “Black Studies & the Archive” and Director of the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis. [30 words]

STYLE NOTE: When referring to SA in print or online, only Smythe, Dr. SA Smythe, or SA (both letters always capitalised and without periods/full) should be used rather than gendered titles or honorifics. SA’s pronouns are: they/them in English, iel/ellui in French, elle in Spanish, lui or ə in Italian, and masculine pronouns or symbols (*/@) are acceptable in other translations.

Dr. SA Smythe is a critical theorist, transmedia storyteller, and educator committed to black belonging beyond genres and geographies. They are associate professor of Black Studies & the Archive and Director of the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis at the University of Toronto. Smythe is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies and serves on international editorial and advisory boards primarily dedicated to Black arts & culture, trans & nonbinary liberation, Black studies, and human rights/migrant justice. Smythe is editor of Troubling the Grounds: Global Configurations of Blackness, Nativism, and Indigeneity (vols. 1&2) (Postmodern Culture), Transnational Black Studies (Liverpool University Press), and author of Where Blackness Meets the Sea: On Crisis, Culture, and the Black Mediterranean (forthcoming) and [proclivity], a poetry collection and sound installation-performance suite. Shortlisted for the 2025 Creative Capital Award (in Multimedia Performance), Smythe is recipient of the 2021-22 Rome Prize for Modern Italian Studies and numerous composer/artist fellowships and residencies supporting their transmedia artwork including 2025 Leighton Studios at Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and 2023-24 MacDowell Fellowship in Multimedia Installation. For decades, Smythe has organised with literary/performance, abolitionist, and migrant support collectives across Turtle Island, Europe, and the Mediterranean. [195 words]