Rinaldo Walcott

Director of Women & Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto, Canadian Writer

Rinaldo Walcott is an Associate Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Director of Women and Gender Studies Institute; he is also a member of the Graduate Program in Cinema Studies of Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. His teaching and research is in the area of black diaspora cultural studies and postcolonial studies with an emphasis on questions of sexuality, gender, nation, citizenship and multiculturalism.  

From 2002-2007 Rinaldo held the Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies where the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Foundation funded his research for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust. From January 2010 to June 2010 Rinaldo was Senior Research Fellow at the Warfield Center for African American Studies and the Department of African Diaspora and African Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Before joining OISE UT Rinaldo was Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities, at York University. While at York, he serviced as the Graduate Program Director of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Rinaldo is the author of Black Like Who: Writing Black Canada (Insomniac Press, 1997 with a second revised edition in 2003), he is also the editor of Rude: Contemporary Black Canadian Cultural Criticism (Insomniac, 2000). As well, Rinaldo is the Co-editor with Roy Moodley of Counselling Across and Beyond Cultures: Exploring the Work of Clemment Vontress in Clinical Practice (University of Toronto Press, 2010). Currently, Rinaldo is completing The Long Emancipation: Moving Towards Freedom. Additionally Rinaldo is co-editor with Dina Georgis and Katherine McKittrick, No Language Is Neutral: Essays on Dionne Brand in Topia: The Journal of Canadian Cultural Studies. Rinaldo is the General Editor of Topia as well. He is also the author Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies (Insomniac Press, 2016).

As an interdisciplinary black studies scholar, Rinaldo has published in a wide range of venues. His articles have appeared in journals and books, as well as popular venues like newspapers and magazines. He often comments on black cultural life for radio and TV. Rinaldo received his PhD. from OISE the University of Toronto in 1996.