Freedom Dreams: A Queer Abolitionist Study Circle with Dr. Robyn Maynard

Location: Room 303, 401 Richmond Building

Date: Saturday, February 14, 2026

Time:1:00 PM to 3:00 PM

This event is part of a series of free, community-oriented study circles where we gather to discuss, debate, and create works that dream of queer abolitionist futures.

Dr. Robyn Maynard will be facilitating the discussion on our current carceral moment, the transnational connections to struggles elsewhere, and how we can make abolition real today.

We will centre our discussion on the preface to Dr. Maynard's recently expanded edition of Policing Black Lives. Please read ahead of time. You can read it here.

A full lunch will be served!

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About Dr. Maynard:

Robyn Maynard is an author and scholar based in Toronto, where she holds the position of Assistant Professor of Black Feminisms in Canada at the University of Toronto-Scarborough in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies. Her writing on borders, policing, abolition and Black feminism is taught widely in universities across Canada, the United States and Europe.

Maynard is the author of two books. Policing Black Lives: State violence in Canada from slavery to the present (Fernwood 2017) is a national bestseller, designated as one of the “best 100 books of 2017” by the Hill Times, listed in The Walrus‘s “best books of 2018,” shortlisted for an Atlantic Book Award, the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction, and the winner of the 2017 Errol Sharpe Book Prize. In 2018 the book was published in French with Mémoire d’encrier, titled NoirEs sous surveillance. Esclavage, répression et violence d’État au Canada and won the 2019 Prix de libraires in the category of “essais.” Rehearsals for Living (Knopt/Haymarket, 2022) co-authored with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, is a Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and CBC National Bestseller, was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award for literary non-fiction, a finalist for the Heritage Toronto Book Award and designated one of CBC’s “best Canadian non-fiction books of 2022” and the “best 100 books of 2022” by the Hill Times. Other awards include “2018 Author of the Year” from Montreal’s Black History Month and the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQI* Emerging Writers.

Additional writing appears in Washington Post, World Policy Journal, the Toronto Star, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, Canadian Woman Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, Scholar & Feminist Journal and numerous book anthologies.

Maynard contributed to the research and writing for the Defund the Police website and recently authored two toolkits: “Building the World We Want: A Roadmap to police-free futures in Canada” and “What is Pr*son Abolition in Canada?” With Pascale Diverlus, she co-hosted Building the World We Want, an abolitionist learning lab.

Questions? Email [email protected]

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