Christina Sharpe facts for kids

Christina Elizabeth Sharpe (born 1965) is an American professor. She teaches English literature and Black Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. In 2024, she received a special award called the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship. She is also a Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University.

Christina Sharpe's Education

Christina Sharpe grew up attending different schools, including Catholic, private, and public ones. She earned her first degree, a bachelor's degree, in English and Africana studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987. During her studies, she also spent time learning in Nigeria at the University of Ibadan. Later, she completed her master's degree and a doctorate at Cornell University. Her advanced research focused on the African writer Bessie Head.

What Christina Sharpe Studies

Christina Sharpe is a well-known expert in Black studies. Her work looks at many different areas. These include how Black people are shown in art and media, Black queer studies, and African-American literature from the mid-1800s to today.

The Idea of "Wake Work"

Sharpe is famous for a powerful idea she calls "wake work." She wrote about this in her important book, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, published in 2016. In this book, she explores the lasting effects of the transatlantic slave trade. She shows how these historical events still shape the lives of Black people today.

"Wake work" is about actively dealing with how Black lives and deaths are affected by racism. It encourages practices of survival, remembering, and resistance within African culture. It's a way to understand and fight against the challenges Black communities face because of history.

Her Other Books

Her earlier book, Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects, came out in 2010. This book looks at how stories, relationships, and images help create Black identities after the end of chattel slavery. Sharpe examines how the history of slavery, colonialism, and racial violence still impacts Black communities. She uses ideas from critical race theory and cultural studies to analyze these connections.

Sharpe also studies how Black people are shown in visual media. This includes films, photographs, and modern art. She points out how these images can either support or challenge old colonial and racist ideas. She looks at how Black artists use their work to push back against these narratives.

Besides her books, Sharpe has written many essays for academic journals. These essays cover topics like memory and trauma related to Black experiences. Her work is known for its creative ways of helping us understand Black life in a world shaped by slavery and ongoing racism. She has also given many talks at conferences and public events.

Where Christina Sharpe Has Worked

Sharpe worked at Hobart and William Smith Colleges from 1996 to 1998. From 1998 to 2018, she taught at Tufts University. She became a full professor there in 2017. She was the first Black woman to earn a permanent teaching position in the English department at Tufts. She is also a senior researcher at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class (RGC) at the University of Johannesburg.

Currently, she is a professor and research chair in Black Studies at York University. She teaches in the Black Canadian Studies certificate program.

Books by Christina Sharpe

Christina Sharpe has written several award-winning books:

• In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
• Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects
• Ordinary Notes

She also wrote an introduction for a collection of poems by Dionne Brand, called Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems of Dionne Brand (1982–2010).

About Monstrous Intimacies (2010)

In Monstrous Intimacies, Christina Sharpe explores how racism creates "monstrous intimacies." These are hidden or unspoken experiences of horror and desire that are passed down through generations. She explains that these are "breathed in like air" but often not recognized as harmful. Sharpe's ideas show how freedom and control, and love and hate, are often connected in complex ways.

About In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016)

Her second book, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, was published in 2016. The publishers describe it as a deep look into how Black life is shown in books, art, movies, and everyday life. Sharpe uses the idea of "wake" in several ways: like the path a ship leaves behind, watching over the dead, or becoming aware.

She shows how Black lives are shaped by the lasting effects of slavery. The book also explores what survives despite this violence and challenges. In the Wake suggests that "wake work" can be a way for Black people to create art, resist, gain understanding, and find ways to live in the diaspora (communities of people living outside their homeland).

Awards and Recognition

Christina Sharpe's books have received many awards and honors:

• In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
  • It was a finalist for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction.
  • The Guardian named it one of the "Best Books of 2016."
  • The Walrus also listed it among the "Best Books of 2016."

• Ordinary Notes
  • It won the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
  • It was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award.
  • It was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction.
  • It was a finalist for the 2023 The Los Angeles Times Current Interest Book Award.
  • It was a finalist for the 2023 The James Tait Black Prize in Biography.
  • Many major publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, and NPR, named it a "Best Book of the Year 2023."

• In 2024, she received the Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction.
• In 2024, she also won the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize for the Sciences and Humanities.
• She was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2024.

Selected Works

• Ordinary Notes. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023.
• In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2016.
• Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010.
• Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2022.