Darcy Ballantyne
Assistant Professor
Department: Department of English
Phone: 416-979-5000 x553643
Email: dballantyne@torontomu.ca
Education: BA (Univeristy of Waterloo), MA (Concordia University), PhD (York University)
Discipline: English Literature
Areas of Expertise:
Black Canadian Literatures & Cultures
Black Memoir
Black Studies
City Writing
Critical Mixed Race Theory
Dr. Darcy Ballantyne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English. She teaches and researches in the areas of Black studies, Black Canadian literatures and cultures, city writing, Black memoir and critical mixed race theory. Darcy has published articles in TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, MaComère: The Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, A/B Auto/Biography Studies, and The Walrus Magazine. She is currently co-editing a special issue of Canadian Literature on the topic of Black life in a post-pandemic world and working on two book-length projects, including a literary memoir.
Dr. Ballantyne holds a PhD in English Literature from York University, an MA in English Literature from Concordia University and a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Waterloo. Her SSHRC-funded dissertation, A Poetics of the Contemporary Black Canadian City, examines depictions of the city by Black Canadian writers within the context of plantation theory. She has taught as sessional faculty in the Black Canadian Studies Certificate Program in the Department of Humanities at York University and in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Scholarly Calling
My teaching and research focus on Black diaspora literatures and cultures, with an emphasis on Canada and Barbados. As a Canadian-born scholar with Barbadian ancestry, I am interested in exploring with my students how these literary geographies intersect.
My two current research projects examine mainstream media representations of Black and biracial child orphans in late twentieth-century Canada and the use of artifacts from the historical Barbadian plantation, such as photographs, implements, and accounting books, as authenticating decor in the repurposed contemporary plantation-cum-tourist attraction.
In my Black Studies courses, my undergraduate students and I explore the persistent erasing and marginalizing of Black peoples and their literary and cultural contributions.
"Our interrogation of literary history is important because it allows for alternative understandings of the complexity and richness of Black life across the diaspora and a more nuanced lens through which to read the work we engage with."
Related Content
For the latest updates, please visit the faculty page linked below.