Great North in the Deep South - please RSVP to attend September 15, 2009

The Canadian Consulate General, Atlanta
GREAT NORTH IN THE DEEP SOUTH

Please join us for a reception in honour of
the distinguished Canadian writer and scholar
Dr. Afua Cooper

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Canada Room, Canadian Consulate General
1175 Peachtree Street, N.E., 100 Colony Square, Suite 1700
Atlanta, GA 30361-6205

R.S.V.P. [email protected]

The GSU Bookstore will have a selection of Afua Cooper’s books available for purchase. Dr. Cooper will read selections and speak about the African-Canadian experience. She has agreed to sign copies of her books.

Afua Cooper is a scholar, author, and poet. She earned her Ph.D. in Canadian history and the African Diaspora with a focus on the Black communities of 19th-century Ontario. Her ground-breaking research on the enslavement of Black people in Canada resulted in the award-winning and best-selling book The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Slavery in
Canada and the Burning of Old Montréal (HarperCollins 2006, released in the United States by the University of Georgia Press). Dr. Cooper is also an
expert on the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement, as well as women’s studies.

In addition to her gifts as a novelist, historian, poet, playwright, and scholar, Afua Cooper is a dynamic performer. She has brought her poetry from page to stage across Canada and the United States, the Caribbean, West Africa, and the United Kingdom. She is a strong proponent of the African-Caribbean poetry genre, Dub poetry, and fuses together the scribal, literary, and musical aspects of that art form in her performances. She has co-hosted
and organised several international Dub Poetry Festivals in Toronto. As a scholar and teacher, Dr. Cooper is the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. She was elected Chair of the newly-formed Black Canadian Studies Association in May 2009.

Dr. Cooper is visiting Atlanta as a Scholar-in-
Residence with the Auburn Avenue Research Library (part of the Atlanta-Fulton County Library
System), which offers special reference and
archival collections for the study and research of
African cultures. The foundation of AARL’s
collection includes the history of slavery, race relations, African American community development, and the Civil Rights Movement. Working with
the Canadian Consulate General, Atlanta, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the International Council for Canadian
Studies, the Library is currently expanding its holdings of materials pertaining to the African-Canadian experience and the long history of
Blacks in Canada.