Cornel Grey
Assistant Professor
Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies
Email: cgrey6@uwo.ca
Brief Bio
I am a scholar of Black queer life whose research spans Black Studies, Queer Health, Critical Public Health, and Black Diaspora Studies. My work explores how Black queer men navigate intimacy, desire, and risk in ways that challenge dominant frameworks in medicine, public health, and sexuality studies. Drawing on qualitative and archival methods, I investigate the politics of care and embodiment, with particular attention to the significance of touch, pleasure, and vulnerability in Black queer men’s lives.
I am currently leading two major research projects: a qualitative study on Black queer men's experiences of and desires for positive touch, and an archival study tracing the transnational itineraries of Black queer diasporic artists and writers. My scholarship sits at the intersection of critical health studies and Black queer theory, foregrounding the affective and structural dimensions of health, pleasure, and marginalization.
Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, where I worked on a multi-site study examining the impact of COVID-19 on the sexual and social lives of gay, bisexual, and queer men in Canada. In Spring 2024, I held a Visiting Fellowship at the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre at the University of Sydney.
I am currently a Scholar Research Fellow with the Critical Pedagogy Lab at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (2025–26) and serve as Adjunct Faculty in the Centre for Global Studies at Huron University. I am the Principal Investigator of Routes of Resistance: Migration, Cultural Homophobia, and Queer Caribbean Men During the AIDS Crisis (2025–27), funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant, and a Co-Applicant on Bridging Gaps, Building Futures: Exploring the Impact of Black Faculty Cluster Hires in Canadian Universities (2024–26), also supported by SSHRC. In addition, I am a Co-Applicant on several CIHR-funded projects that investigate Black health and 2SLGBTQ+ health, further extending my commitment to collaborative, community-engaged research at the intersections of race, sexuality, and health.
Research Interests
Black Studies; Black Diaspora; Black Feminisms; Black Queer Studies; Queer Health; Queer Diaspora; Critical Health Studies; Critical Race Studies; Sexual Health; HIV/AIDS; Masculinities
Undergraduate Courses
My teaching is guided by a Black feminist ethics of care that treats education as a civic practice rooted in reciprocity, curiosity, and social responsibility. I design courses that encourage students to think critically across disciplines, engage with their communities, and connect scholarship to lived experience. To this end, I have incorporated experiential learning opportunities such as student visits to the Toronto International Film Festival, community dinners at Yaya’s Kitchen that explore Black foodways and cultural memory, and collaborative projects with local organizations. I also experiment with cross-institutional partnerships, including a hybrid course on Black Geographies co-taught across multiple campuses, and I extend pedagogy into public spaces through initiatives like library exhibitions on World AIDS Day and Gender-Based Violence at Weldon Library. Across all of these efforts, I strive to create rigorous, imaginative, and caring learning environments where students see their learning as meaningful beyond the classroom.
Recent undergraduate courses include:
· GSWS 1021F Introduction to Sexuality Studies
· GSWS 2162B The Body
· GSWS 2171B Out of Left Field: Gender and Sport
· GSWS 2230F Introduction to Black/African Diaspora
· GSWS 2412G Black Geographies
· GSWS 3315G Blood, Breath and the Black Body
Selected Publications
Book Chapter
Cornel Grey and Kareem K. M. Willis. 2025. “LGBTQ+, Race, and The Pursuit of Social Equity.” In Achieving Social Equity: From Problems to Solutions, edited by Mary E. Guy and Sean A. McCandless, 2nd ed: Melvin & Leigh.
Cornel Grey and Nikoli A. Attai. 2019. “LGBT Rights, Sexual Citizenship, and Blacklighting in the Anglophone Caribbean.” In The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics, edited by Michael Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy, and Momin Rahman. New York: Oxford University Press.
Journal Articles
Cornel Grey. 2025. “Forget-Me-Not, Though the Nation Will: Black Queer Mourning, Homonationalism, and the Politics of Memory.” TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 50 (June): 103–18.
Cornel Grey. 2025. “The Racial Optics of Crisis: Racialized Innocence and the Politics of Care in Adolescence.”, European Journal of Cultural Studies ahead of print, August 16.
Anthony W.H. Yuen, Jordan M. Sang, Lu Wang, Justin Barath, Nathan J. Lachowsky, Allan Lal, Julius Elefante, Trevor A. Hart, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Cornel Grey, Daniel Grace, Joseph Cox, Gilles Lambert, Syed W. Noor, Herak Apelian, Abbie Parlette, Kiffer G. Card, Mark W. Hull, Jody Jollimore and David M. Moore. 2024. “Attitudes of Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men (GBM) toward Their Use of Amphetamine-Type Stimulants and Relation to Reducing Use in Three Canadian Cities.” Substance Use & Misuse 59 (2): 278-290.
Cornel Grey, Ian Liujia Tian, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Emerich Daroya, Ben Klassen, David Lessard, Mark Gaspar, Jad Sinno, Jordan M. Sang, Amaya Perez-Brumer, Nathan J. Lachowsky, David M. Moore, Jody Jollimore, Trevor A. Hart, Joseph Cox, Daniel Grace. 2023. “Unpacking racism amid intersecting epidemics of HIV and COVID-19: narratives from racialized Canadian gay, bisexual, and queer men.” International Journal for Equity in Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-023-01961-z.
Cornel Grey, Jad Sinno, Haochuan Zhang, Emerich Daroya, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Ben Klassen, David Lessard, et al. 2023. ‘Queering Public Health: A Critical Examination of Healthcare Access and Gender Expression among Trans, Nonbinary, and Other Gender Nonconforming People during COVID-19’. Health & Social Care in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/6676318.
Emerich Daroya, Mark Gaspar, Cornel Grey, David Lessard, Ben Klassen, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Jad Sinno, et al. 2023. ‘“It’s Different for Heterosexuals”: Exploring Cis-Heteronormativity in COVID-19 Public Health Directives and Its Impacts on Canadian Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men’. Critical Public Health: 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2023.2226807.
Emerich Daroya, Cornel Grey, Ben Klassen, David Lessard, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Amaya Perez-Brumer, Barry Adam, et al. 2023. ‘“It’s Not as Good as the Face-to-Face Contact”: A Sociomaterialist Analysis of the Use of Virtual Care among Canadian Gay, Bisexual and Queer Men during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. Sociology of Health & Illness. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13686.
Emerich Daroya, Cornel Grey, David Lessard, Ben Klassen, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Mark Gaspar, Amaya Perez-Brumer, et al. 2022. ‘“I Did Not Have Sex Outside of Our Bubble”: Changes in Sexual Practices and Risk Reduction Strategies among Sexual Minority Men in Canada during the COVID-19 Pandemic’. Culture, Health & Sexuality. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2022.2139414.
Skakoon‐Sparling, Shayna, Kiffer G. Card, Jake R. Novick, Graham Berlin, Nathan J. Lachowsky, Barry Adam, David J. Brennan, Jordan M. Sang, Syed W. Noor, Joseph Cox, David M. Moore, Daniel Grace, Cornel Grey, Emerich Daroya, Trevor A. Hart. 2022. ‘The Relevance of Communal Altruism for Sexual Minority Men in Contemporary Contexts’. Journal of Community Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22923.
Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Joseph Cox, Nathan J. Lachowsky, Allison L. Kirschbaum, Graham W. Berlin, Mark Gaspar, Barry D. Adam, David J. Brennan, David M. Moore, Herak Apelian, Jordan M. Sang, Jody Jollimore, Daniel Grace, Cornel Grey and Trevor A. Hart. 2022. ‘Minority Stressors and Connectedness among Urban Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Men’. Psychology of Men & Masculinities 23 (2): 245–56. https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000388.
Mark Gaspar, Cornel Grey, Alex Wells, Mark Hull, Darrell H. S. Tan, Nathan Lachowsky, and Daniel Grace. 2022. ‘Public Health Morality, Sex, and COVID-19: Sexual Minority Men’s HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Decision-Making during Ontario’s First COVID-19 Lockdown’. Critical Public Health 32 (1): 116–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2021.1970720.
Book Review
Cornel Grey. 2024. “The Politics of Queer Belonging in the Caribbean.” Sx Salon: A Small Axe Literary Platform, no. 47 (October).
Cornel Grey. 2018. ‘Letters in Black, Care of Christina Sharpe’. Critical Ethnic Studies 4 (1): 175–79. https://doi.org/10.5749/jcritethnstud.4.1.0175.
Reports
Bidushy Sadika, M. Jawad Zawulistani, Caden Miguel Reyes, Heather Martin, Cornel Grey, Kaitlynn Mendes, and Emily G. Nielsen. 2023. “Understanding Hate in Ontario.” London: Mosaic Institute. https://www.mosaicinstitute.ca/_files/ugd/8de27d_bb7b7799460d47bcb763ad604cde1065.pdf
Popular Media
Cornel Grey, Muna-Udbi Abdulkadir Ali, and Stephanie Latty. 2025. “Reckoning and Resistance: The Future of Black Hiring Commitments on Campus.” The Conversation, April 17.
Cornel Grey, Ian Liujia Tian, and Daniel Grace. 2022. ‘Will You Take on the Challenge? Combatting Racism in Our Communities Will Require All Our Efforts.’ Engage (blog). 27 June 2022. https://www.engage-men.ca/will-you-take-on-the-challenge-combatting-racism-in-our-communities-will-require-all-our-efforts/.
Cornel Grey. 2016. ‘Deportation, Nation and Incarceration: What Does It Mean to Be a Citizen?’ Stabroek News (blog). 19 September 2016. http://www.stabroeknews.com/2016/features/in-the-diaspora/09/19/deportation-nation-incarceration-mean-citizen/.
Cornel Grey. 2016. ‘A Tale of Same/Safe Spaces: On the (Im)Possibilities of LGBT Life’. Stabroek News (blog). 24 October 2016. http://www.stabroeknews.com/2016/features/in-the-diaspora/10/24/tale-samesafe-spaces-impossibilities-lgbt-life/.
