All books by Dr. CBD

In Left of Karl Marx, Carole Boyce Davies assesses the activism, writing, and legacy of Claudia Jones (1915–1964), a pioneering Afro-Caribbean radical intellectual, dedicated communist, and feminist. Jones is buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery, to the left of Karl Marx—a location that Boyce Davies finds fitting given how Jones expanded Marxism-Leninism to incorporate gender and race in her political critique and activism. Read more. . .




ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA [2008] The authoritative source for information on the people, places, and events of the African diaspora, spanning five continents and five centuries.



DECOLONIZING THE ACADEMY, African Diaspora Studies [2003] by Carole Boyce Davis with Editorial Team: Meredith Gadsby, Charles Peterson, and Henrietta Williams. This work asserts that the academy is perhaps the most colonized space. As we enter the twenty-first century, this has become even clearer now that the academy is one of the primary sites for the production and re-production of ideas that serve the interests of colonizing powers. Operating at the macro level in terms of the state and at the micro level in various applications, these interests include the organization of the disciplines, the marginalization of interdisciplinary studies, the re-assertion of masculinities, and the operations of class, privilege, and hierarchy.

This collection of essays argues that African diaspora theory has the possibility of interrrupting the current colonizing process and re-engaging the decolonizing process at the level of the mind, as emphasized by Ngugi wa Thiong’o in an earlier contribution. In addition, the collection asserts that this will be an ongoing project worthy of being undertaken in a variety of fields of study as we confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.



The-African-Diaspora-African-Origins-and-New-World-Identities [1996] These essays contribute to the debate between those who believe that the African origin of blacks in western society is central to their identity and outlook and those who deny that proposition. The contributors ponder the key questions underlying that controversy. Their 33 essays are divided into five main parts: The Diaspora: Orientation and Determinations; Addressing the Constraints; Race, Gender, and Image; Creativity, Spirituality, and Identity; and Reconnecting with Africa.


BLACK WOMAN WRITING AND IDENTITY: Migrations of the subject [1994] Boyce Davies's book is exciting and informative and inclusive of most contemporary theoretical thinking that relates to the study of black women writing cross-culturally. Perhaps too inclusive. The text is congested with references to and quotations from disparate theorists who, rather than elucidate, often detract from Boyce Davies's arguments. And Boyce Davies often glosses over major differences in the methodologies favored by the theorists she examines. The positions of Barbara Christian, bell hooks, and Teresa Ebert on the impact of poststructuralism on coeval literary criticism, for example, are much more sharply differentiated than Boyce Davies would want us to know.