Beyond Inclusion: Afro-Can and the Making of Black Student Life

Join us for a film screening of Beyond Inclusion: Afro-Can and the Making of Black Student Life featuring the early formation of Black life in a Toronto high school and connecting it to issues of Anti-Black racism, diasporic yearning, creativity and the place of justice in cultural and political life.

Following the film will be a post-screening panel discussion that invites reflections on Black life work across urban, local, regional and transnational contexts.
Panel Participants

• Prof. Ann E. Lopez Dr. Ann E. Lopez is a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, where she also serves as the Director of the Centre for Leadership and Diversity and Special Advisor to the Dean on School and Community Partnerships. Her teaching and research explore school leadership praxis, undergirded by anti-racist, decolonial, and culturally responsive methodologies that examine the impact of coloniality on education in both the Global North and Global South. A widely recognized critical scholar, author, and speaker, Dr. Lopez has published five books and numerous articles, and holds leadership roles including Immediate Past President of the National Association for Multicultural Education and Secretary General of the World Council for Equity and Diversity in Education.
• Prof. Funké Aladejebi Dr. Funké Aladejebi is a twentieth-century historian specializing in Black Canadian history, oral history, transnationalism, and the history of education in Canada. Her research extensively analyzes how legacies of race, gender, and migration shape contemporary educational encounters for Black communities. She is the author of Schooling the System: A History of Black Women Teachers (MQUP, 2021) and the co-editor of Unsettling the Great White North: Black Canadian History (UTP, 2022). Her current research charts international education recruitment and training initiatives across Canada, the Caribbean, and Africa to understand Canada’s role in the development of Black Internationalism.
• Prof. Carl E. James Dr. Carl E. James holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora at York University, where he is a Distinguished Research Professor cross-appointed to the Graduate Programs in Sociology, Social Work, and Social and Political Thought. He is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking research on race, racialization, and structural inequities as they impact the educational, occupational, and life experiences of Black youth in Canada. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of the 2022 Killam Prize in the Social Sciences, Dr. James has published seminal texts including Seeing Ourselves: Exploring Race, Ethnicity and Identity and Colour Matters, and has served as a strategic advisor on equity to both university leadership and the Ontario Ministry of Education.
• Prof. Julie MacArthur is an Associate Professor in UofT Mississauga's Department of Historical Studies, cross-appointed in the Department of History at the U of T St. George campus. She works extensively in the field of African cinema as both a curator and an academic. Her current project, African Cinema and the Political Imagination, explores film as a central technology through which Africans compose their pasts and engage with contemporary social and political concerns. She has served as a programming associate for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and Film Africa in London, and was the Director of the Cambridge African Film Festival. She regularly curates film programs and participates in festivals worldwide.
• Ms. Choltu Curlin Choltu Curlin is a film director, cultural worker, and the founder of the Toronto Black Archives. Driven by a passion to counteract the historical erasure and documented scarcity of Toronto’s Black community narratives, her work focuses on preserving and sharing stories across the African diaspora. Her creative praxis seamlessly intersects filmmaking with archival preservation, utilizing historical imagery to construct narratives that explore ancestral journeys, cultural identity, and holistic community wellness.
• Prof. Kamari Maxine Clarke Dr. Kamari Maxine Clarke is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Toronto, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, and a leading transnational scholar who has spent over twenty years exploring the intersections of legal institutions, human rights, international law, and the politics of race. Her extensive body of work includes over fifty peer-reviewed articles and nine books, most notably Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback (Duke, 2019). Beyond her academic contributions, Dr. Clarke has served as a technical advisor to the African Union legal counsel and frequently consults with global affairs and justice organizations to bridge legal anthropology with international public policy.