Jade Ferguson

Education 

PhD English, Cornell University

MA English, Cornell University

BA English, University of British Columbia

Research and Teaching

My research interests include 19th to mid-20th century Canadian literature, Civil Rights Movement literature and photography, New Southern Studies, and Critical Race Theory. I am working on two monographs: the first is a cultural history of anti-black mob violence in Canada, Lynching in Canaan: Race, Violence, and Cultural Memory in Canada, and the second examines cultural representations of segregation and civil rights activism in Canada in literature, film, and photography, Jim Crow Canada: Segregation and Civil Rights in Canadian Literature and Art.

I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in early and contemporary Canadian literatures, including courses with experiential learning and/or community-engaged components (Black Past in Guelph and Rembrance as Reconciliation). I work with and supervise MA and PhD students in the areas of Canadian and US literature, critical race theory, and gender and sexuality studies. In 2016 and 2020, I was awarded the College of Arts Faculty Teaching Excellence Award.  I will not be taking on any new graduate supervisions in 2025/26.

In the Provost's Office, I serve as the Assistant Vice President, Academic Equity and Inclusion. Since 2022, I have worked with students, faculty, and staff from across the university to promote, support and advance equity, diversity, and inclusion activities in teaching and learning, faculty recruitment and retention, training workshops and resources, as well as mentorship and leadership development.

Currently, I am the Director of Interdisciplinary Programs and core faculty in the Sexualities, Genders, and Social Change program (SXGN) and the Black Canadian Studies program (BLCK) in the College of Arts. Funded by the Learning Enhancement Fund and the EDI Enhancement Fund, I run the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience. SURE provides racialized students with the opportunity to develop their academic skills as researchers and fosters a sense of confidence as scholars. With its inclusive learning enivronment and community-engaged components, SURE provides a space for students to affirm their racial identities, experiences, and communities in their praxis-oriented research.

Refereed Journal Articles and Chapters (selected)

"'This is our Alabama': Racial Segregation, Discrimination, and Violence in Tamio Wakayama's Signs of Life." The Global South 9.1 (Spring 2015): 124-146. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/623199/pdf

"Discounting Slavery: The Currency Wars, Minstrelsy, and 'The White N****r' in Thomas Chandler Haliburton's The Clockmaker." Parallel Encounters: Culture at the Canada-US Border. Editors Gillian Roberts and David Stirrup. Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2014. https://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/P/Parallel-Encounters2