Boundary Crossing: An Interview with Carole Boyce Davies

Carole Boyce Davies is Professor of English and Africana Studies at Cornell University. In 2017, she received the Distinguished Africanist Award from the New York State African Studies Association and was honored with the Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award for her globally influential work as a scholar, educator, and activist. In the words of CPA (Caribbean Philosophical Association) President Neil Roberts, "Carole Boyce Davies is a giant in the fields of Caribbean thought and African Diasporic studies." She has been an integral part of how to talk about diaspora, decoloniality, black women's histories and philosophies, and the black radical tradition. Davies has published many books, including the prize-winning Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject (1994) and edited or co-edited several critical collections on African Diaspora literature. On behalf of Foreign Literature Studies, Dr. Zheng Li interviewed Davies on a series of questions, such as black women writing and identity, migrating subjects, spatial and temporal frame for the African Diaspora, the comparison between African writing and other minority groups, and women's perspectives on cosmopolitanism and cultural identity in the context of globalization. In addition, Davies shares her view of how to realize one's fullness and potentiality as a woman in today's world. How to keep a balance between nationalism and cosmopolitanism? In her view, it's a question not only for African people, but for all of us, regardless of our race, gender and nationality.