Charmaine Nelson Explained

Charmaine Nelson
Birth Name:	Charmaine Andrea Nelson
Occupation:	Art history professor
Period:	2001–present
Education:	Art History
Alma Mater:	University of Manchester (PhD) Concordia University (BFA & MFA)
Discipline:	Art History
Workplaces:	University of Massachusetts Amherst (2022–present) NSCAD University (2020–2022) McGill University (2003–2020) University of Western Ontario

Charmaine Andrea Nelson (born 1971) is a Canadian art historian, educator, author, and independent curator. Nelson was a full professor of art history at McGill University until June 2020 when she joined NSCAD University to develop the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery.^{[1] [2]} She is the first tenured Black professor of art history in Canada.^{[3] [4]} Nelson's research interests include the visual culture of slavery, race and representation, Black Canadian studies and African Canadian history as well as critical theory, post-colonial studies, Black feminist scholarship, Transatlantic Slavery Studies, and Black Diaspora Studies.^{[5] [6] [7] [8]} In addition to teaching and publishing in these research areas, Nelson has curated exhibitions, including at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery^[9] in Oshawa, Ontario, and the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.^[10]

Education

• BFA Art History 1994, Concordia University
• MFA Art History 1995, Concordia University
• PhD Art History 2001, the University of Manchester (UK)^[4]

Career

After completing her BFA and MFA degrees at Concordia University, Nelson worked at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario. She then began her PhD at Queen's University which she completed at the University of Manchester (UK) in 2001. Before obtaining her position at McGill University, Nelson was an assistant professor at University of Western Ontario.

Throughout her career, Nelson has held several fellowships and research chairs including a Caird Senior Research Fellowship, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK (2007), a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair,^{[11] [12]} University of California – Santa Barbara (2010) as well as a visiting professorship in the Department of Africology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (2011).^[13]

In 2015, she was an Associate Member of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art at Concordia University.^[14] From 2015 to 2017, Nelson was a Faculty Fellow at McGill's Institute for Public Life of the Arts and Ideas.^[15] In 2016, she was named as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists.^[16] From 2017 to 2018, Nelson was the William Lyon Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard University.^[17]

In June 2020, Nelson was named as NSCAD University's Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, a funded, seven-year (renewable) position where she will continue her research on Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement.^[18] In addition, Nelson will use the seven-year position to work with NSCAD to develop the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery.^{[19] [20] [21]}

As of October, 2022, Nelson has left NSCAD, citing experiences of racism where she felt "undermined and as though she was being questioned about her ability to run an institute."^[22] She has re-developed the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery into the Slavery North Initiative, a project that she currently leads at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.^[23]

Public speaking

Nelson regularly offers public presentations of her research. Some of these include:

• McCready Lecture on Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, "From African to Creole: Examining Creolization through the Art and Fugitive Slave Advertisements of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Canada and Jamaica" (2016).^[24]
• Walker Cultural Leader Series and Canada 150 at Brock University, "Colonial Print Culture and the Limits of Enslaved Resistance: Examining the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Fugitive Slave Archive in Canada and Jamaica" (2017).^{[25] [26]}
• Slavery and human rights: struggles of representation Lectures presented by Réseau art actuel, "Mining a Colonial Archive: Fugitive Slave Advertisements – An Untapped Resource in the Study of Slavery in Canada" (2017).^[27]
• Lecture at University of Toronto Scarborough, "Slavery, Race & Representation: Charmaine A. Nelson and Andrew Hunter in Conversation" wherein Nelson discussed her "research on fugitive slaves in Canada and its role in understanding the experiences of Black communities in 18th and 19th centuries in the regions that became Canada" (April 2018).^{[28] [29]}
• Lecture at the National Gallery of Canada, "Fugitive Slave Advertisements and/as Portraiture in late Eighteenth- and early Nineteenth-Century Canada" (February 2019).^[30]
• ECI Mandela Lecture at Ryerson University, "True North: Unmasking Slavery in Canada Ft. Dr. Charmaine Nelson" (October 2019).^{[31] [32]}
• J. Fred Weintz & Rosemary Weintz Art Lecture Series at Stanford University's Department of Art & Art History, "Weintz Art Lecture Series presents Charmaine Nelson" (November 2019).^[33]

Select publications

Nelson has published articles in academic journals and popular sources, including the Journal of Transatlantic Studies,^[34] The Walrus Magazine,^[35] Frieze,^{[36] [37]} RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review,^{[38] [39]} American Art,^[40] Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies,^[41] and HuffPost.^[42] She is author and editor of several books and has contributed chapters to numerous scholarly publications.

As author

• Through an-other's eyes: white Canadian artists, Black female subjects (Oshawa, Ontario: Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1998).
• The Color of Stone: Sculpting the Black Female Subject in Nineteenth-Century America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007).
• Representing the Black Female Subject in Western Art (New York: Routledge, 2010).
• Slavery, Geography, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (London, UK: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2016).

As editor

• Racism Eh?: A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2004).
• Ebony Roots, Northern Soil: Perspectives on Blackness in Canada (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010).
• Legacies Denied: Unearthing the Visual Culture of Canadian Slavery (Montreal: Printed for author by McGill Copy Service, 2013).
• Towards an African-Canadian Art History: Art, Memory, and Resistance (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2018).^[43]

As contributing author

• "Vénus africaine: race, beauty and African-ness," [chapter] Black Victorians: black people in British art, 1800–1900, ed. Jan Marsh (Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries, 2005).
• "Edmonia Lewis's Death of Cleopatra: White Marble, Black Bodies, and Racial Crisis in America," Local/Global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, eds. Deborah Cherry and Janice Helland (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006).
• "Speculations on the Visual: Culture, Race and Diaspora," [chapter] Multiple Lenses: Voices from the Diaspora Located in Canada, ed. David Divine (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007).
• "Sugar Cane, Slaves, and Ships: Colonialism, Geography and Power in Nineteenth-Century Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica," [chapter] Living History: Encountering the Memory of the Heirs of Slavery, ed. Ana Lucia Araujo (New Castle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2009).
• "Buried in a Watery Grave: Art, Commemoration and Racial Trauma," [chapter] The Black Body: Imagining, Writing, and (Re)reading, eds. Michelle Goodwin, Sandra Jackson, Fassil Demisse (University of South Africa Press, 2009).
• "Blacks in White Marble: Interracial Female Subjects in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Neoclassicism," [chapter] Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities, eds. Regina E. Spellers and Kimberly R. Moffitt, (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., 2010).
• "The 'Hottentot Venus' in Canada: Modernism, Censorship and the Racial Limits of Female Sexuality," [chapter] Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies, eds. Maureen Fitzgerald and Scott Rayler (Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press, 2012).
• Wanted (Toronto, ON: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017).
• "Servant, Savage or Sarah: Enslaved Black Female Subjects in Canadian Art and Fugitive Slave Advertisements," [chapter] Women in the "Promised Land" essays in African Canadian history, eds. Wanda Bernard, Boulou Ebanda and Nina Reid-Maroney (Toronto; Vancouver: Women's Press, 2018).
• "Remembering Canadian Slavery. Black Subjects in Historical Quebec Art.," [chapter] Engaging with diversity: multidisciplinary reflections on plurality from Québec, eds. Stephan Gervais, Mary Anne Poutanen and Raffaele Iacovino (Bruxelles; New York: Peter Lang, 2018).
• "Ran away from her master... a negroe girl named Thursday": examining evidence of punishment, isolation, and trauma in Nova Scotia and Quebec fugitive slave advertisements," [chapter] Legal violence and the limits of the law, eds. Joshua Nichols and Amy Swiffen (Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018).

Recognition

Charmaine Nelson has received a Woman of Distinction Award from the Montreal's Women's YWCA in 2012 (Arts and Culture Category) as well as a Teaching Award from The Arts Undergraduate Society of McGill University (2016), and McGill's Faculty Award for Equity and Community Building (2016).^[2]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Charmaine Nelson and NSCAD University to Create Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery. 2021-02-15. Canadian Art. en-US.
2. Web site: Charmaine Nelson. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200407075204/https://www.mcgill.ca/ahcs/people-contacts/faculty/nelson. April 7, 2020. March 17, 2018. McGill University Art History & Communication Studies faculty profiles.
3. News: Undergrads at Harvard will study Canadian slave history this fall thanks to a professor from McGill University Affairs. University Affairs. March 17, 2018.
4. Web site: A lifetime in academia. concordia.ca. March 17, 2018.
5. Web site: Canada's slavery secret: The whitewashing of 200 years of enslavement . Kyle G. Brown . Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. en. March 28, 2019.
6. News: Fugitive Portraits. Canadian Art. March 17, 2018.
7. Book: Racism, Eh ? A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada. Nelson. Charmaine A.. Nelson. Camille A.. Captus Press Inc. 2004. 1-55322-061-7. Concord, Ont.. 463.
8. Web site: December 8, 2017. The little-told history of Canadians as slave owners, not just slave rescuers. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20171209183624/http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-sunday-edition-december-10-2017-1.4439351/the-little-told-history-of-canadians-as-slave-owners-not-just-slave-rescuers-1.4439365 . December 9, 2017 . June 20, 2020. CBC Radio: The Sunday Edition.
9. Web site: September 19, 2013. Hot Topics: #AskACurator. June 21, 2020. The RMG.
10. Web site: Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery of Concordia University. 2000. Through An-Other's Eyes: White Canadian Artists-Black Female Subjects, February 10 – March 18, 2000. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200623035057/http://archive_ellengallery.concordia.ca/oldSite/archive/march2000.html . June 23, 2020 . June 21, 2020 . archive_ellengallery.concordia.ca.
11. Web site: Charmaine Nelson Fulbright Scholar Program. June 19, 2020. cies.org.
12. Web site: 2011. Fulbright Canada Annual Report 2011. June 21, 2020. Issuu. 8. en.
13. Web site: From Slavery to Black Power and Hip Hop: McGill's Charmaine Nelson explore Ebony Roots. June 21, 2020. The Gazette. Montreal. en-CA.
14. Web site: Biographical information. June 19, 2020. concordia.ca. en.
15. Web site: WGS Welcomes Professor Charmaine Nelson!. wgs.fas.harvard.edu. March 17, 2018.
16. Web site: Charmaine Nelson. March 17, 2018. HuffPost.
17. Web site: News in Brief: Unearthing the Visual Culture of Canadian Slavery. June 21, 2020. Canadian Art. en-US.
18. Web site: June 16, 2020. NSCAD University announces Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement. June 17, 2020. NSCAD. en-CA.
19. Web site: 2020-06-16. NSCAD University announces Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement. 2020-06-22. NSCAD. en-CA.
20. Web site: Charmaine Nelson and NSCAD University to Create Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery. June 19, 2020. Canadian Art. en-US.
21. Web site: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. June 22, 2020. New institute for examining slavery in Canada to be set up at NSCAD University. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200704045634/https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/art-historian-institue-canadian-slavery-1.5622252 . July 4, 2020 . July 4, 2020. CBC News.
22. News: Khan. Aman. October 20, 2022. Accusations of racism shutter groundbreaking Halifax institute studying Canadian slavery. CBC. April 28, 2023.
23. Web site: Charmaine A. Nelson. University of Massachusetts. April 28, 2023.
24. Web site: McCready Lecture on Canadian Art: Charmaine Nelson AGO Art Gallery of Ontario. ago.net. March 17, 2018.
25. News: Celebrated scholar Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson visits Brock University. Brock University. March 17, 2018.
26. Web site: October 29, 2019. Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson: Speaker provides chilling reminder of Canadian slave history. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20180707074728/https://brocku.ca/miwsfpa/visual-arts/tag/dr-charmaine-a-nelson/ . July 7, 2018 . June 21, 2020. Brock University. en-CA.
27. Web site: RÉSEAU ART ACTUEL: Lectures by Charmaine Nelson and Jennifer Carter, Monday March 27 at 5pm at la Galerie de l'UQAM. rcaaq.org. March 17, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180318120354/http://www.rcaaq.org/html/en/programmation/expositions_details.php?id=28269. March 18, 2018. dead.
28. Web site: Slavery, Race & Representation: Charmaine A. Nelson and Andrew Hunter in Conversation. June 17, 2020. University of Toronto Scarborough – News and Events. en.
29. Web site: The Slave's Lament at the Doris McCarthy Gallery UTSC. June 17, 2020. utsc.utoronto.ca.
30. Web site: Fugitive Slave Advertisements and/as Portraiture in late Eighteenth- and early Nineteenth-Century Canada. June 21, 2020. gallery.ca. en.
31. Web site: ECI Mandela Lecture. June 19, 2020. Ryerson University. en.
32. Web site: October 29, 2019. True North: Unmasking Slavery in Canada Ft. Dr. Charmaine Nelson (ECI Mandela Lecture). June 19, 2020. Ontario Council for International Cooperation. en-US.
33. Web site: Weintz Art Lecture Series presents Charmaine Nelson Department of Art & Art History. June 19, 2020. art.stanford.edu.
34. Nelson. Charmaine A.. 147868277. April 2, 2016. 'I am the only woman!': the racial dimensions of patriarchy and the containment of white women in James Hakewill's A Picturesque Tour of the Island of Jamaica … (1825). Journal of Transatlantic Studies. 14. 2. 126–138. 10.1080/14794012.2016.1169871. 1479-4012.
35. Web site: charmaine nelson The Walrus. June 20, 2020. en-US.
36. News: Nelson. Dr Charmaine A.. The Black Female Figure. en. frieze. 7. June 20, 2020. 0962-0672.
37. News: Higgie. Jennifer. Celebrating Women's Work Throughout Art History. en. frieze. 7. June 20, 2020. 0962-0672.
38. Web site: 2000–2009: Vol. 27, no. 1/2 (2000). live. https://web.archive.org/web/20170912122839/http://www.racar-racar.com:80/2000-2009.html . September 12, 2017 . June 21, 2020. RACAR. en.
39. Nelson. Charmaine A.. 2000. White Marble, Black Bodies and the Fear of the Invisible Negro: Signifying Blackness in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Neoclassical Sculpture. RACAR: Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review. 27. 1/2. 87–101. 10.7202/1069725ar. 42631206. 0315-9906. free.
40. Nelson. Charmaine A.. June 1, 2017. Interrogating the Colonial Cartographical Imagination. American Art. 31. 2. 51–53. 10.1086/694062. 193916143. 1073-9300.
41. Igloliorte. Heather. Jim. Alice Ming Wai. Morton. Erin. Nelson. Charmaine A.. Nighttraveller. Cheli. Ripley. A. J.. Taunton. Carla. Vukov. Tamara. Cahill. Susan. Holmes. Kristy A.. 158602909. 2018-03-12. Killjoys, Academic Citizenship and the Politics of Getting Along. Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. 38. 187–208. en. 10.3138/topia.38.187.
42. Web site: Charmaine Nelson. June 21, 2020. HuffPost. en.
43. Web site: Captus Catalogue: Towards an African Canadian Art History – Charmaine A. Nelson. March 28, 2019. captus.com.