The next installment in the MSVU Research Office’s Black and Indigenous Speaker Series will feature Dr. Maki Motapanyane, Associate Professor, Department of Women and Gender Studies, Mount Saint Vincent University.
Drawing on Black feminist traditions of experimental scholarship, Dr. Motapanyane’s talk titled “What Form Knows: Black Feminist Research, Writing, and Knowledge Otherwise” considers how form shapes both the production and circulation of knowledge. It explores how creative and unconventional forms can extend the possibilities of research without relinquishing theoretical and methodological rigour. The discussion invites researchers, students, and teachers to consider how choices about form can deepen analysis, broaden engagement, and change what scholarship is able to do.
When: Thursday, October 15, 2026, from 12 to 1 p.m.
Where: This event is being held online, via MS Teams.
All are welcome. Register here.
About Dr. Maki Motapanyane
Dr. Motapanyane teaches in subject areas that include feminist theory, postcolonial theory, feminism in Africa, global gender studies, colonial/postcolonial and women’s social movements/political upheaval/social change, ecofeminism and liberation ecology, Hip-Hop culture, and motherhood. Her research projects and publications examine various feminist traditions in Africa, Black feminist epistemology, maternal theory and motherhood, childcare policy and the political economy of care, Hip-Hop culture, stand-up comedy, and equity and inclusion in organizational practice.
Community involvement and collective social justice efforts beyond the academy are an important part of Dr. Motapanyane’s intellectual life. She has served on the programming committee of the North York Women’s Centre (Toronto, Canada), with the Immigrant and Refugee Women’s Program in Saint Louis (Missouri, USA), and has several years of experience as a mentor and counsellor to African Nova Scotian youth in Halifax and surrounding region (Canada).
Dr. Motapanyane is accredited in conflict resolution and mediation, having served as a mediator for the Calgary Provincial Courts Civil Claims Mediation Program, Alberta Justice and Solicitor General. She served as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation (AHRF), an agency under the purview of the Ministry of Culture, Multiculturalism and Status of Women, and sat on the Advisory Board of Calgary’s Future, an organization dedicated to recruiting, supporting and electing community leaders to municipal government. Dr. Motapanyane has also served as a Faculty Association Diversity and Equity Officer, and is an Editorial Board member of the academic journal Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice.
About the Black and Indigenous Speaker Series
Hosted by the MSVU Research Office, the Black and Indigenous Speaker Series highlights the scholarly work of Black and Indigenous scholars from across Turtle Island. The purpose of this series is to initiate important conversation by inviting Black and Indigenous scholars to share their knowledge, worldviews, and their contributions to their respective academic field.
MSVU is located in Mi’kma’ki, the unceded and ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq People.