When I was writing my dissertation in the 1990s, my niece once asked me what grade I was in. I was quiet while I did the math, and then answered, “I think it’s grade twenty-three, I’m in the 23rd grade.” Her eyes got wide, and my brother rushed to reassure her, “Don’t worry—you don’t have to go to school that long.”
I’m not counting grades anymore, but my life still revolves around the academic calendar. Labour Day, the touch of autumn in the year, a new notebook, that’s the true beginning of the year, whatever the ordinary calendar has to say. And this is a beginning that still fills me with anticipation, excitement, and a touch of nervousness.
That’s always true, but this year it’s truer than ever, as I take on the new role of Director of the Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, my first administrative role since I arrived at the University of Toronto in 2018. Luckily, I’m not flying blind: Antonela Arhin, Associate Director and Katharine Bell, Communications and Program Officer are providing continuity, institutional knowledge and organizational genius, and my precursors in the position, Kevin O’Neill and Ken MacDonald, who was Acting Director last year while I was on sabbatical, have helped with the transition.
I’m always curious about how people land in CDTS, since there isn’t really a usual path for either faculty or students. Our faculty comes from a range of disciplines—history, anthropology, literature, religion, and others. In my case, I was invited to teach a course at CDTS in 2013, as a Shoshana Shier Visiting Professor at the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. I taught a course in translation studies, an emergent discipline that has interesting connections with diaspora studies. Ato Quayson was a gracious host, and I’ve found CDTS a welcoming home since then. Aside from regularly teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on translation, I’ve also developed a course called “Drawing Diaspora: Superman and Other Migrants,” which involves both reading and writing graphic novels about the immigrant experience. The students in these classes, I’m persuaded, are the most interesting and brilliant ones on campus, and they’re what drive our efforts.
The Centre has grown exponentially since my first year there, from four faculty to eleven, and we now offer a much broader array of courses than we once could. This growth mirrors the increasing importance of the subject. The field of diaspora and transnational studies is a belated entry into a university structured according to national boundaries and the disciplines that reflect and reinforce them, but its salience is becoming ever more apparent. Immigration is at the forefront of political debates in many parts of the world. This stands to reason: The world is on the move, in response to wars, economic disparities, the climate crisis. Toronto is itself a city of immigrants, and our classes reflect and explore these realities.
From the theoretical perspective, diaspora and transnational studies is a field in ferment. Old paradigms that shaped the discipline at the outset, in particular the model of a lost homeland to which diasporic communities hoped to return, have given way to more flexible and varied ways of understanding both displacement and transnational connections. Moreover, we no longer oppose indigeneity to diaspora, since they turn out to be interwoven in many ways. As one of the predominant academic locations for these conversations, the Centre—in its classes, events, and publications—is poised to serve as an arena for important debates in the field and larger society for decades to come.
Stay tuned for the publication in a few weeks of our speaker series for the year. One I have been planning is a Roundtable on Jewish Diasporism and Diaspora, in late January—details to come.
We also hope you’ll join us for a Welcome Breakfast on Wednesday, September 17th. Please also stop by to say hello. One goal I have for the year is to meet every student in our program for a one-on-one conversation. You’ll be getting an email to schedule those very soon. And enjoy the new year, whatever “grade” you’re in!
Naomi