- Assistant Professor
Biography
Education
Ph.D., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, 2021
M.A., York University, 2014
B.A. Spec. Hons., York University, 2013
About
Marlene Gaynair is an Assistant Professor of the modern Black Atlantic in the Department of History at Washington State University. She specializes in the social and cultural histories of the United States, Canada, and British Caribbean during the long twentieth century. Her research interests cover popular culture, diasporas, immigration, and urban histories/spaces.
She is also the architect of “Islands in the North,” an ongoing digital exhibit which (re) creates Black cultural and spatial identities in Toronto. She continues to engage in digital histories and humanities to explore other dimensions of historical scholarship and public engagement.
She is currently working on her book manuscript, which is a transnational study of Jamaicans in urban Canada and the United States after Emancipation.
Academic and Research Interests
Select Publications
- “A Riot Is The Language Of The Unheard: Centering Black Caribbean Voices in Crown Heights.” Journal of American Ethnic History (Winter 2025)
- Review of David K. Wiggins, Kevin B. Witherspoon, and Mark Dyreson. Black Mercuries: African American Athletes, Race, and the Modern Olympic Games. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023. Journal of Sport History 51, no. 1 (2024).
- Review of Dreamland: America’s Immigration Lottery in an Age of Restriction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Journal of Social History (September 2024).
- Review of The Porter. Created by Arnold Pinnock and Bruce Ramsay, Season 1, CBC Television/BET +, 21 February 2022. Canadian Historical Review, 104, no. 2 (June 2023).
- Review of Marcia Chatelain. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America. New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 2020. 336 pp. ISBN 978-1-63149-394-2 $28.95 (cloth).” Enterprise & Society (Summer 2022).