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Christina Elizabeth Sharpe

クリスティーナ・エリザベス・シャープ

Christina Elizabeth Sharpe

Profile

Gender
Female
Born
1965 （United States）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Religion
Catholicism
Residence History
United States → Toronto, Canada → Ibadan, Nigeria (study abroad) → Johannesburg, South Africa (research affiliation)

Career

Occupations
Professor, Scholar, Author
Active Years
1996-
Affiliations
Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Tufts University (Department of English), York University (Faculty of Humanities, Black Studies), University of Johannesburg (Centre for the Study of Race, Gender & Class), Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities, York University
Influenced By
Bessie Head, Gertrude Stein, Gayl Jones, Julie Dash, Cherríe Moraga, Dionne Brand
Influenced
Contemporary Black Studies scholars

Education

University of Pennsylvania
School of Arts and Sciences / English and Africana Studies
Degree: BA
Period: 〜1987
Year of Graduation: 1987
Country: United States
Studied abroad at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
Cornell University
Graduate School (Humanities) / English / Africana Studies
Degree: MA, PhD
Period: 1990s–1999
Year of Graduation: 1999
Country: United States
Doctoral dissertation on writer Bessie Head.

Awards

Windham–Campbell Prize (Nonfiction)
2024
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: Windham–Campbell Prizes
Result: 受賞
Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize (Sciences and Humanities)
2024
Category: 科学・人文
Organization: Canada Council for the Arts
Result: 受賞
Guggenheim Fellowship
2024
Organization: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Result: フェローに選出
Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: Writers' Trust of Canada
Result: 受賞
National Book Award
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: National Book Foundation
Result: 最終候補
National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction)
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: National Book Critics Circle
Result: 最終候補
Los Angeles Times Current Interest Book Award
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: Los Angeles Times
Result: 最終候補
James Tait Black Prize (Biography)
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Category: 伝記
Organization: The University of Edinburgh (James Tait Black Prizes)
Result: 最終候補
Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (Nonfiction)
2017
Work: In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Category: ノンフィクション
Organization: Hurston/Wright Foundation
Result: 最終候補
The Guardian — Best Books of 2016
2016
Work: In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Organization: The Guardian
Result: 選出
The Walrus — Best Books of 2016
2016
Work: In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
Organization: The Walrus
Result: 選出
The New York Times — Best Books of 2023
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: The New York Times
Result: 選出
The Atlantic — Best Books of 2023
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: The Atlantic
Result: 選出
The New Yorker — Best Books of 2023
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: The New Yorker
Result: 選出
The Globe and Mail — Best Books of 2023
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: The Globe and Mail
Result: 選出
Toronto Star — Best Books of 2023
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: Toronto Star
Result: 選出
NPR — Best Books of 2023
2023
Work: Ordinary Notes
Organization: NPR
Result: 選出

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects

2010 Scholarly criticism

Monstrous Intimacies examines how narration, relation, and representation combine to form Black subjects in the post-chattel slavery era. Through the concept of 'monstrous intimacies' it analyzes sexual-racial economies and the psychic and material reach of slavery's legacies.

legacy of slaverysubjectivityintimacymemory

In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

2016 Scholarly criticism

In the Wake centers the concepts of 'wake' and 'wake work' to interrogate how the afterlives of slavery shape Black life, culture, and representation. Using literary, visual, cinematic, and quotidian sources, Sharpe delineates practices of survival, remembrance, and resistance.

wake/ship's pathafterlives of slaverymemory and mourningvisual culture

Ordinary Notes

2023 Essays / Criticism

A collection of fragmentary notes and essays that interweave observations, theorization of Black life, and fragments of memory and experience, offering a distinctive reading of Blackness.

memoryordinarinessrace and subjectivityvisuality and narrative

Bibliography

  • Ordinary Notes
  • In the Wake: On Blackness and Being
  • Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects
  • Critical introduction to Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems of Dionne Brand

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Interdisciplinary, theoretical proseEssayistic and fragmentary structureCritical engagement with visual culture
Recurring Motifs
wake (ship's path / keeping watch with the dead)memory and legacyembodiment and visualityboundaries of life and death

Legacy

Christina Sharpe is an influential scholar in Black Studies and English literature; her concepts of 'wake' and 'wake work' have permeated interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching. Her books have been widely acclaimed in academia and by general reviewers, earning multiple awards and year-end best-book recognitions.

Archives

  • Christina Sharpe papers (Ms.2018.015) at Brown University Library

Quotes

  • “Wake work calls for insurgent engagement with the ways that Black life and death are figured by anti-Blackness, into practices of survival, remembrance, and resistance.”
    Source: In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Duke University Press, 2016) (2016)

Trivia

  • One of the first Black women to be awarded tenure in the Department of English at Tufts University.
  • Studied abroad at the University of Ibadan while a student at the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Doctoral dissertation focused on the writer Bessie Head.
  • Ordinary Notes (2023) won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award and other prizes.
  • In 2024 she received the Windham–Campbell Prize, the Canada Council Molson Prize, and was named a Guggenheim Fellow.