GRACE DAVIE

Modern Africa, South Africa, History of Science, Labor History, Social Movements

Powdermaker Hall, Room 352-L
Phone: 718-997-5381
Fax: 718-997-5359
grace.davie@qc.cuny.edu

Originally from Washington DC, Grace Davie earned her Ph.D. in African History from the University of Michigan. Grace has received fellowships and awards from the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Social Science Research Council, and the Fulbright Scholars Program. Her first book was Poverty Knowledge in South Africa: A Social History of Human Science, 1855-2005 (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She has published essays in The Journal of Southern African Studies, OD Practitioner, and Politique Africaine, as well as The Value of Work Since the 18^th Century (Bloomsbury, 2023). Her current book, Webs of Power: Labor Union Corporate Campaigns in the United States (under contract with University of North Carolina Press, Justice Power Politics series), tells the story of civil rights activists in the US South who became strategic advisors to striking workers and struggling labor unions, resulting in a series of innovative efforts to win reforms from multinationals and anti-union industries. Grace’s research interests include the boycott and divestment campaigns of the international movement that helped to end apartheid in South Africa, c.1950s-1990s. Professor Davie also has a long-standing interest in the intersection of history, anthropology, and psychoanalytic theory. Along with courses on research and writing for MA and MLS/MA students, Grace has taught courses on Africa since 1800, South Africa, truth commissions, historical approaches to social memory, and postcolonial African history through film. In recent years, Grace has run “collaborative online international learning” courses linking Queens College and the University of Abuja, Nigeria.