York University Professor Christina Sharpe has been named a recipient of the 2025 Killam Prize, a prestigious honour recognizing her profound impact on Black studies and the humanities in Canada and beyond.
Awarded annually to five distinguished Canadian scholars, the Killam Prize acknowledges sustained research excellence across the fields of engineering, health sciences, humanities, natural sciences and social sciences. Each recipient is awarded $100,000 in recognition of their contributions to advancing knowledge and fostering innovation.
Christina Sharpe (photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths)
Sharpe, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities, is widely regarded as one of the most influential voices shaping Black studies today. Her work spans literature, film, theory, visual and performing arts and engages deeply with the evolving conversations and debates of Black diaspora studies.
"It is an honour to be among the other recipients," says Sharpe, a professor in York's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS). "I am humbled by the recognition of the Killam in the atmospheres of our times that are decimating the humanities which are so crucial to our abilities to think, understand, imagine and enact other ways of being in the world. This is the work of Black studies."
Through her scholarship, she has played a key role in shaping intellectual and cultural discourse in Canada, the United States and internationally.
Sharpe's acclaimed research and writing have brought renewed attention to the lived experiences of Black communities in Canada and around the world. Her 2023 book, Ordinary Notes, received the Hilary Weston Writer's Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Hodler Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the James Tait Black Prize in Biography and the L.A.Times Current Interest Book Award. It was also recognized as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, among others. In 2024, Sharpe was also awarded the Molson Prize, the Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction and a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
"The 2025 Killam laureates contribute to increasing the scientific achievements of Canadian institutions," says Bernard F. Miller, KC, managing trustee of the Killam Trusts. "Now, more than ever, their research is needed to help build Canada's future, foster innovation and encourage multidisciplinary collaboration, which are core pillars of the Killam values."
As a scholar based in Canada, Sharpe has helped establish Black studies as a vital area of academic inquiry, making space for new research and dialogue at a time when the humanities are facing significant challenges globally.
"Professor Sharpe's selection as a recipient of the 2025 Killam Prize reflects her outstanding contributions to Black studies and the humanities, which resonate profoundly within our academic community and beyond," says J.J. McMurtry, dean of LA&PS. "Her work is not only a testament to her scholarly excellence but also to her commitment to advancing access and inclusion in the fields of arts and literature. We are proud to have Professor Sharpe within our Faculty and celebrate the impact of her work on this important field of study."
Her upcoming projects, What Could a Vessel Be? and Black. Still. Life., continue this work, further expanding the ways in which Black life and history are examined and understood.
The Killam Prize adds to an already distinguished list of honours for Sharpe and places her among a select group of York University faculty who have received this recognition, including Janine Marchessault (2024), Carl James (2022), Stephen Gill (2021) and Ellen Bialystok (2010).
This story was originally featured in YFile, York University's community newsletter.
