Discover more about Karen Flynn’s educational background, research interests and expertise.

About Karen Flynn

Karen Flynn is an Associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Department of African-American Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from York University, Toronto, Ontario, in 2003. Her research interests include migration and travel, Black Canada, health, popular culture, feminist, Diasporic and post-colonial studies.

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My Book

MOVING BEYOND BORDERS: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora

A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora Moving Beyond Borders is the first book-length history of Black health care workers in Canada, delving into the experiences of thirty-five postwar era nurses who were born in Canada or who immigrated from the Caribbean either through Britain or directly to Canada. Karen Flynn examines the shaping of these women’s stories from their childhoods through to their roles as professionals and community activists.

PUBLIC APPEARANCES

‘Trailblazing came at a cost’: The history of Ontario’s Black nursing pioneers

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Hamilton Anti-Racism Resource Centre – panel discussion - tackling some of these issues and the historical contributions of Black nurses in Canada.

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Podcast with Garvia Bailey: Strong and Free | West Indian Domestic Scheme: Nurturing a Nation

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Battles faced by black nurses in Canada

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Karen Flynn is an Associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Department of African-American Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from York University, Toronto, Ontario, in 2003. Her research interests include migration and travel, Black Canada, health, popular culture, feminist, Diasporic and post-colonial studies. Dr. Flynn’s book: Moving Beyond Borders: Black Canadian and Caribbean women in the African Canadian Diaspora published by the University of Toronto won the Lavinia L. Dock Award from the American Association of the History of Nursing. She is currently working on a second book project that maps the travel itineraries of young Black EFL teachers across borders.

Flynn was awarded the Unit for Criticism Senior Fellowship, 2020-2022 and was named as the Aaron and Laurel Clark Professorial Scholar, 2020-2023. In 2019, she was awarded the Hilda Neatby Prize in Canadian Women’s and Gender History, awarded by the Canadian Committee in Women’s History of the Canadian Historical Association and the AAHN Mary Adelaide Nutting Award for Exemplary Historical Research and Writing in a Manuscript or Article for the article, “Hotel Refuses Negro Nurse”: Gloria Clarke Baylis and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel” published in the Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. She is currently a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project.

In addition to her academic work, Dr. Flynn has published numerous editorials in Share, Canada’s largest ethnic newspaper, which serves the Black & Caribbean communities in the Greater Metropolitan Toronto area. area. Dr. Flynn has had oped articles in Now Magazine, the Toronto Star, and Rabble.ca. She was also a freelance writer for Canada Extra, and most recently for Swaymag.ca where she wrote passionately about contemporary issues considering issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, age, and nation. Dr. Flynn was recently a Dean’s Fellow for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS), a program geared toward strengthening and expanding the cadre of leaders in the College. In 2015, Dr. Flynn was selected as the Conrad Humanities Fellow for LAS for excellence in scholarship.


Moving Beyond Borders is the first book-length history of Black health care workers in Canada, delving into the experiences of thirty-five postwar era nurses who were born in Canada or who immigrated from the Caribbean either through Britain or directly to Canada. Karen Flynn examines the shaping of these women’s stories from their childhoods through to their roles as professionals and community activists. Flynn interweaves oral histories with archival sources to show how these women’s lives were shaped by their experiences of migration, professional training, and family life. Theoretical analyses from post-colonial, gender and diasporic Black Studies serve to highlight the multiple subjectivities operating within these women’s lives. By presenting a collective biography of identity formation, Moving beyond Borders reveals the extraordinary complexity of Black women’s history.

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