Joseanne Cudjoe

Biography

Joseanne Cudjoe is a Black digital humanities scholar. Her research explores the intersection of Black female body politics, Black cultural critique, and counter-hegemonic digital media production. Her work centers on the lived experiences of Black women and focuses on their representation in traditional and new media. In her research, she also explores the media production of women of colour by investigating how these women use technology to gain greater autonomy over the narratives told about their lives. In a recent book chapter entitled Digital sister circles: Collectivity and comradery in natural hair online communities, she examines the growing number of online spaces dedicated to the discourse and celebration of Black natural hair, i.e., the Black digital natural hair movement. She argues that these spaces resemble Black feminized liberation spaces known as Sister Circles. Like Sister Circles, the movement's proponents use these locations to engage in counter-hegemonic organizing by creating and sharing body politics focus content that is self-reflective and empowering. At the core of her work is the question of the role that technology plays in reshaping the media production landscape and its impact on the framing, surveillance, and discussion of marginalized bodies in contemporary mainstream mediated spaces. Additionally, Joseanne also focuses on digital media convergence and transformation within the Caribbean. She is currently working on a project that examines how access across class, race, and gender lines impedes the promised socioeconomic progression of the investment the government of Trinidad and Tobago has made into the country's digital infrastructure. 

Before coming to the University of Toronto and joining the Department of Arts, Culture and Music (UTSC), she was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at William Patterson University, New Jersey. She also taught media, race, and gender courses in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, New Jersey, as a part-time lecturer while completing her Ph.D. in Media Studies and her graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies.