Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
2019 PhD Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto.
2013 MPhil Cultural Studies, University of the West Indies.
2007 BA Media and Communication University of the West Indies.
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2024 – Present Committee Member, Department of Race, Gender, and Ethnic Studies
Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
2022 – Present Director, The RaGE Collective, Department of Race, Gender and Ethnic Studies
2002 – Present Co-Chair, Department of Race, Gender and Ethnic Studies Research Committee
2021 – 2022 Research Associate, Queer and Trans Research Lab, University of Toronto
2019 – 2021 Provost Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Toronto
ACADEMIC AWARDS
2024 Caribbean Studies Association Author Celebration Certificate of Achievement.
Granted to Caribbean Studies scholars for books published between 2023-2024.
2024 Inaugural Inclusive Excellence Faculty of the Year Award, Colorado State University.
Awarded to one faculty member who embodies principles of community inclusion, integrity, service, respect, and social justice.
2023 Black/ African American Cultural Center (BAACC) Special Friend Award, Colorado State University.
Awarded to a member of the university community in recognition of their academic leadership and community support.
CONTRACTS & GRANTS
Externally Funded Projects as Principal Investigator
The Queer Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, Duke Center for Documentary Studies DocX Development Lab, USD$10,000.00. (2024)
Our Queer Culture: Archive of Queer Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean Institute in Gender and Development (CIGAD), USD $2,000.00. (2022-2023)
Externally Funded Projects as Co-Principal Investigator
The Queer Archives of Trinidad and Tobago: Angelique V. Nixon, Nikoli A. Attai, Alessandra Hereman, Catherine Shepherd, Keith McNeal, Caribbean Digital Scholarship Collective, USD$10,000.00. (2024)
Translocal Action Dialogues for Digital Archives: Exposure-Sensitive Methods & Ethics for Queerly Minoritized Materials: Theresa L. Cowan, Jasmine Rault, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Individual Connection Grant, CDN$46,043. (2023)
Internally Funded Awards
Academy for Undergraduate Students: Caridad Souza and Nikoli Attai, College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State University, USD$8,350.00. (2022-2024)
Real Talk Academy: Nikoli Attai and Duan Ruff, College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State University, USD$4,500. (2022-2023)
PUBLISHED WORKS
Manuscripts:
Nikoli Attai. 2023. Defiant Bodies: Making Queer Community in the Anglophone Caribbean. Rutgers University Press. ISBN: 9781978830356
Refereed Journal Articles:
Nikoli Attai. 2017. “Let’s Liberate the Bullers! Toronto Human Rights Activism and Implications for Caribbean Strategies.” In Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies Volume 42 No. 3. https://www.jecsonline.com/journals/volume-42-no-3-december-2017/
Refereed Chapters in Books:
Nikoli Attai. “Global North Homoimperialism and the Conundrum of Queer Asylum” In On Othering Processes and Politics of Unpeace, edited by Yasmin Saskia and Chad Haines. Athabasca University Press, Canada. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771993869.01
Nikoli Attai, K. Nandini Ghisyawan, Rajanie Preity Kumar and Carla Moore, 2020. “Tales from the Field: Myths and Methodologies for Researching Same-Sex Desiring People in the Caribbean.” In Beyond Homophobia: Centering LGBT Experiences in the Caribbean, edited by Moji Anderson and Erin Macleod. UWI Press, Kingston Jamaica. ISBN 13:9789766407445.
Cornel Grey and Nikoli Attai. 2019. “Revisiting LGBT Rights in the Caribbean: Talking Across Difference.” In The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Studies, edited by Michael Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy, and Momin Rahman. ISBN: 9780190673741.
Book Reviews:
NWIG 97-1&2 (2023)
Krystal Nandini Ghisyawan, Erotic Cartographies: Decolonization and the Queer Caribbean Imagination. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2022. xii + 252pp. (Paper US$ 39.95) https://doi.org/10.1163/22134360-09701003
Island Studies Journal, 17(1), 2022, 306-319
Lyndon Gill (2018) Erotic Islands: Art and Activism in the Queer Caribbean. 312 pp. Durham, Duke University Press. ISBN: 978-0822368700 (Paperback). US$25.95. https://islandstudiesjournal.org/issue/8165
Other Writing
Newspaper articles
2018 Love wins –resisting hatred, building community and forging change in the Caribbean. Stabroek News – In the Diaspora. April 16, 2013. https://www.stabroeknews.com/2018/features/in-the-diaspora/04/16/love-wins-resisting-hatred-building-community-and-forging-change-in-the-caribbean/
Reports
2017 “Trinidad and Tobago School Climate Report: Bulling and Gender-Based Violence in Secondary Schools.” (Contributing author with Krystal Ghisyawan and Darren J. Glenn for the Silver Lining Foundation for Published the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Associated Schools Network Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago)