Cecil Foster

Last updated
Cecil Foster
Born (1954-09-26) September 26, 1954 (age 68)
Bridgetown, Barbados
Nationality Canadian
Occupation Author
Public intellectual
Professor
Known forExploring on issues of citizenship, culture, multiculturalism, politics, race, ethnicity and immigration

Cecil Foster (born September 26, 1954) is a Canadian novelist, essayist, journalist, Public intellectual and scholar. He is Chairman of the Department of Transnational Studies at the University of Buffalo.

Contents

Early life and education

Foster was born in Bridgetown, Barbados on 26 September 1954 to Fred and Doris Goddard. [1] [2] When Foster was two years old, his parents migrated to Britain, leaving their children with relatives. The family was extremely poor; Foster remembers a childhood where there was rarely enough to eat. [3]

Foster attended Harrison College, a prestigious high school in Barbados. [4] He immigrated to Canada in 1978. [5] Foster completed his PhD at York University in 2002. [5]

Career

Foster began working for the Caribbean News Agency in Bridgetown as the senior reporter and editor (1975–77), and the Barbados Advocate News as the reporter and columnist (1977–79), Foster emigrated to Canada in 1979. He went on to work for the Toronto Star as a reporter (1979–82). Foster then began working for The Contrast as an editor (1979–82), Transportation Business Management as an editor (1982–83), The Globe and Mail as a reporter (1983–89), The Financial Post as a senior editor (1989), and also served as special adviser to Ontario's Ministry of Culture, through the mid-1990s. His most recent book, Where Race Does Not Matter (2004), explores the potential of multiculturalism in Canada. It also expands on some of his earlier work that deals with issues of race in his own life as well as in the history of Canada. He is well known for exploring race through immigration, and empowers this culture and beliefs through "Blacks in Action". Foster continues to bring his own personal experiences, and real-life issues to the work that he continues to produce. Island Wings: A Memoir (1998) was written as an autobiography of his own life, and is often referred to as more informative, rather than entertainment. Foster completed his PhD, a phenomenological exploration of the concept of Blackness in Canada, at York University in 2003. His philosophical influences include Hegel, Marx, Alexandre Kojève, Will Kymlicka, Charles Taylor, and former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Foster taught sociology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. [3]

He is a well-regarded novelist. [6] Foster served as a judge for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize. [7]

He won the Writers' Trust of Canada's Gordon Montador Award in 1997 for his book A Place Called Heaven [8] for the Best Canadian Book on Contemporary Social Issues, the novel “Sleep On, Beloved” was shortlisted for the Ontario Trillium Book Prize, and “Blackness and Modernity: The Colour of Humanity and the Quest for Freedom” (McGill-Queen’s UP 2007), won the 2008 John Porter Tradition of Excellence Book Award by the Canadian Sociology Association. [9]

In 2019 he published the non-fiction book They Called Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada, a study of the history of Black Canadian train porters. [10] [11] Writer Suzette Mayr consulted the book as part of her research for her Giller Prize-winning 2022 novel The Sleeping Car Porter . [12]

Books

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austin Clarke (novelist)</span>

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield "Tom" Clarke,, was a Barbadian novelist, essayist, and short story writer who was based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Among his notable books are novels such as The Polished Hoe (2002), memoirs including Membering (2015), and two collections of poetry, Where the Sun Shines Best (2013) and In Your Crib (2015).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Taylor (philosopher)</span> Canadian philosopher

Charles Margrave Taylor is a Canadian philosopher from Montreal, Quebec, and professor emeritus at McGill University best known for his contributions to political philosophy, the philosophy of social science, the history of philosophy, and intellectual history. His work has earned him the Kyoto Prize, the Templeton Prize, the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy, and the John W. Kluge Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Augustine</span> Canadian politician

Jean Augustine is a Grenada-born Canadian politician. She was the first Black Canadian woman to serve as a federal Minister of the Crown and Member of Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters</span> American labor organisation

Founded in 1925, The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first labor organization led by African Americans to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railway workers across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Beginning after the American Civil War, the job of Pullman porter had become an important means of work in the black community in the United States. As a result of a decline in railway transportation in the 1960s, BSCP membership declined. It merged in 1978 with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC), now known as the Transportation Communications International Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pullman porter</span> Passenger railroad car worker

Pullman porters were men hired to work on the railroads as porters on sleeping cars. Starting shortly after the American Civil War, George Pullman sought out former slaves to work on his sleeper cars. Their job was to carry passengers’ baggage, shine shoes, set up and maintain the sleeping berths, and serve passengers. Pullman porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company ceased operations on December 31, 1968, though some sleeping-car porters continued working on cars operated by the railroads themselves and, beginning in 1971, Amtrak. The term "porter" has been superseded in modern American usage by "sleeping car attendant", with the former term being considered "somewhat derogatory".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caribana</span> Caribbean festival in Toronto

The Toronto Caribbean Carnival, formerly known as Caribana, is a festival of Caribbean culture and traditions held each summer in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a pan-Caribbean Carnival event and has been billed as North America's largest street festival, frequented by over 1.3 million visitors each year for the festival's final parade and an overall attendance of 2 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shani Mootoo</span> Canadian artist

Shani Mootoo, writer, visual artist and video maker, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural mosaic</span> Co-existence of ethnic groups, languages and cultures

"Cultural mosaic" is the mix of ethnic groups, languages, and cultures that coexist within society. The idea of a cultural mosaic is intended to suggest a form of multiculturalism, different from other systems such as the melting pot, which is often used to describe nations like the United States' assimilation.

Hazel Vivian Carby is Professor Emerita of African American Studies and of American Studies. She served as Charles C & Dorathea S Dilley Professor of African American Studies & American Studies at Yale University.

Stanley George Sinclair Grizzle, CM, O.Ont was a Canadian citizenship judge, soldier, political candidate and civil rights and labour union activist. Born in 1918 in Toronto to Jamaican immigrants, he was the oldest of seven children. He died in November 2016 at the age of 97, 6 days before his 98th birthday.

Marlene Nourbese Philip, usually credited as M. NourbeSe Philip, is a Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, essayist and short story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Railway porter</span> Railway worker who assists passengers

A porter is a railway employee. The role of a porter is to assist passengers at railway stations, and to handle the loading, unloading, and distribution of luggage and parcels. In the United States the term was formerly used for employees who attended to passengers aboard sleeping cars, a usage unknown to British or Commonwealth English where such staff are known as attendants or stewards, terms which are also common in translation in non-English speaking European train travel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiculturalism in Canada</span> Canadian social situation

Multiculturalism in Canada was officially adopted by the government during the 1970s and 1980s. The Canadian federal government has been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The 1960s Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origin of modern political awareness of multiculturalism, resulting in Canada being one of the most multicultural nations in the world. The official state policy of multiculturalism is often cited as one of Canada's significant accomplishments, and a key distinguishing element of Canadian identity and Canadian values.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzette Mayr</span> Canadian novelist (born 1967)

Suzette Mayr is a Canadian novelist who has written five critically acclaimed novels. Currently a professor at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Arts, Mayr's works have both won and been nominated for several literary awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esi Edugyan</span> Canadian novelist

Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black.

Harry Ralph Gairey was a Jamaican-born Black Canadian community leader and activist who worked as a railroad porter for much of his life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Floria Pinkney</span> USA trade union activist

Floria Pinkney was a Progressive Era garment worker and union activist from Brooklyn, New York. She was the first African-American woman to hold a leadership role as an organizer within the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Charles Daniels was a Black Canadian working as a porter supervisor with the CPR at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1914, he launched a $1,000 discrimination lawsuit against the Sherman Grand theatre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, when the management refused to honour his ticket for floor seating in the whites-only section to see a production of King Lear.

Donald Willard Moore (1891–1994), known also as "Uncle Don", was a Black Canadian civil rights activist who fought to change Canada’s immigration laws. He is known for his involvement in several civil rights organizations and for leading a delegation in Ottawa that successfully managed to push the Government of Canada to revise discriminatory immigration laws affecting non-white immigrants.

The Sleeping Car Porter is a novel by Canadian writer Suzette Mayr, published in 2022 by Coach House Books.

References

  1. ↑ Who's who Among African Americans. Gale Research. 1996. p. 504. ISBN   9780810357280 . Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  2. 1 2 Nurse, Donna Bailey (14 February 2014). "Independence, by Cecil Foster: Review". National Post . Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  3. 1 2 Powell, Naomi (19 February 2005). "Redefining race; University of Guelph professor Cecil Foster envisions a Canada where our values, not skin colour, define us (author profile)". Guelph Mercury. ProQuest   355686133.
  4. ↑ Arts, Faculty of (2021-02-12), Black History Month Lecture 2021 by Cecil Foster: Black Canada: Multiculturalism & Social Justice , retrieved 2021-02-19
  5. 1 2 "Cecil Foster". University of Buffalo. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
  6. ↑ Gionas, Sandra (9 July 1995). "Cecil Foster's fiction focuses on female strengths (profile)". Ottawa Citizen. ProQuest   239942283.
  7. ↑ "The Giller Prize expands its jury to five people ", The Globe and Mail, 14 Jan 2015.
  8. ↑ "A Place Called Heaven earns social-issues book prize". Halifax Daily News , May 30, 1997.
  9. ↑ "Cecil Foster: Faculty Expert on Multiculturalism, Race and Politics in Canada - University at Buffalo". www.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  10. ↑ "Demeaned, overworked and all called George: How Black train porters transformed Canada". Toronto Star , February 1, 2019.
  11. ↑ "They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada". Biblioasis. Retrieved 2021-02-05.
  12. ↑ Eric Volmers, "Giller-shortlisted Calgary author Suzette Mayr's long journey to The Sleeping Car Porter". Calgary Herald , October 22, 2022.
  13. ↑ Stewart, Joyce. "Still Growing Up: Cecil Foster's 'No Man in the House' and Sasenarine Persaud's 'Dear Death.'" Caribbean Studies, vol. 27, no. 3/4, 1994, pp. 447–451. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25613282.
  14. ↑ "Distorted Mirror – Canada's Racist Face" . Retrieved 2021-02-08.
  15. ↑ Thomas, H. Nigel. "Cecil Foster's 'Sleep on, Beloved': A Depiction of the Consequences of Racism in Canadian Immigration Policy." Journal of Black Studies, vol. 38, no. 3, 2008, pp. 484–501. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40034393.
  16. ↑ "Genuine Multiculturalism | McGill-Queen's University Press". www.mqup.ca. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.