SJE Faculty, Students, and Staff Present at 100 Years of Frantz Fanon Symposium
On October 17, 2025, the Department of Social Justice Education proudly participated in The Body Keeps Me Questioning: 100 Years of Frantz Fanon Symposium at Trinity College, University of Toronto. This interdisciplinary conference marked the centenary of Frantz Fanons birth and explored how colonial violence is not only a historical or political reality but also a somatic and psychosocial conditionembedded in bodies, inherited across generations, and lived daily. Full abstracts are available here.
Members of the SJE community contributed across multiple sessions:
Session The Body Always Questions: Memory, Resistance, Action
Dr. Rod Michalko
Rod Michalko, a blind disability studies theorist, retired from teaching at Social Justice Education, OISE, New College, York University, among other places. Internationally recognized for his books and essays on disability studies, Michalkos latest, in both audio and print, is Letters with Smokie: Blindness and More than Human Questions.
In his talk, O, my body, make of me always a man who questions!, he explored Fanons notion of the body as a site of reflection, questioning, and finality. Michalko examined how prayer, consciousness, and embodiment intersect in Fanons work, revealing how the body itself becomes a vehicle for inquiry, resistance, and ethical engagement with the world.
Mayson Broccoli-Romanowska
Mayson Broccoli-Romanowska is a Master of Arts student in Social Justice Education, with a BA in English & Cultural Studies and Indigenous Studies from McMaster University. She also works as a Junior Strategic Initiatives Analyst for Public Services and Procurement 遙ぺ整氈窒.
In her presentation, Undergraduate Pedagogical Interventions and Counternarratives for Critical Action in White Anti-Racist Allies, Broccoli-Romanowska shared work-in-progress from her MA thesis, exploring how anti-oppressive courses can guide White students beyond reflection toward sustained, critical anti-racist action. Drawing on Critical Whiteness Studies and Paulo Freires liberatory pedagogies, her research aims to identify pedagogical practices and counternarratives that catalyze anti-oppressive White activist engagement.
Session Fanon Reimagined: Embodiment, Resistance, and Critical Freedoms
Dr. Tanya Titchkosky
Dr. Tanya Titchkosky is a professor in Social Justice Education and a leading scholar in disability studies. She has written Disability, Self and Society and co-edited DisAppearing: Encounters in Disability Studies.
In her presentation, Pray What? Disability Imaginaries and Fanon, Titchkosky explored how Fanons final prayer in Black Skin, White Masks provokes critical reflection on the body, perception, and social imaginaries. Using the example of the dyslexic body, she demonstrated how disability can disrupt dominant narratives and open space for reimagining embodied knowledge, showing how the body itself demands questioning and ethical engagement in the context of racialized, colonial, and cultural imaginaries.
Dr. Ahmed Ilmi
Dr. Ahmed Ilmi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough, specializing in Black Studies, African Studies, and social justice education. He has published extensively on identity, diaspora, spirituality, and anti-Black racism.
In his talk, Fanon, the Black Body, and the Quest for Human Freedom, Ilmi analyzed the Black body as a site of colonial oppression and resistance, exploring how Fanons work illuminates intergenerational struggle, embodiment, and liberation. His presentation highlighted the ways Black bodies carry memory, confront coloniality, and demand strategic knowledge production in the pursuit of freedom and justice.
Session Embodying Resistance: Trauma, Death, and the Body
Dr. Elaine Cagulada
Dr. Elaine Cagulada, Research Officer for the Disability Matters Project, joined the Department of Social Justice Education in September 2024. Her research spans critical disability studies, Black studies, digital humanities, and sociology, focusing on race, disability, and representation.
Cagulada was scheduled to present The Weight of Our Breathing, exploring how breath, language, and embodiment intersect in colonial and decolonial contexts, and how storying breath can teach us about interrelatedness and the weight of embodied memory. Due to illness, she was unable to attend but remains a valued contributor to SJEs work on disability and embodiment.
The Department of SJE celebrates the robust participation of its community at this symposium, showcasing the ways in which scholarship, activism, and embodied practice continue to engage Fanons legacy, critical inquiry, and decolonial possibilities.
