Howard University has named Trinidadian-born scholar Carole Boyce-Davies as the inaugural Eric Eustace Williams, Ph.D., Endowed Chair in Caribbean Studies, expanding the historically Black university’s scholarship focused on the Caribbean and African diaspora, the Miami Herald reports.
The endowed chair honors Eric Eustace Williams, a historian and scholar who taught at Howard before becoming Trinidad and Tobago’s first prime minister after the country gained independence from Britain on Aug. 31, 1962. Williams taught at Howard from 1939 to 1946, conducting research that contributed to his influential 1944 book, “Capitalism and Slavery.”
Boyce-Davies is chair and professor of African Diaspora Literatures in Howard’s Department of Literature and Writing.
Before joining Howard in 2023, she taught at Cornell University, Northwestern University, and Florida International University.
At FIU, Boyce-Davies served as director of African New World Studies from 1997 to 2006 and co-founded the Eric Williams Lecture Series with Williams’ daughter, Erica Williams Connell. The series remained at FIU for 19 years before moving to the University of Texas in 2021.
“Doing the work without knowing future impact is what we should all see as part of our personal demands as scholars, writers, thinkers,” Boyce-Davies told the outlet.
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“If what we contribute is recognized and is taken forward, we all benefit just as the beneficiaries of streams of prior intellectualism and activism.”
Boyce-Davies, a former president of the Caribbean Studies Association, organized the association’s first conference in Haiti in 2016. She said becoming the founding Eric Williams chair reflects Howard’s efforts to ensure “the Caribbean is seen as a knowledge field.”
Boyce-Davies earned a master’s degree in African Studies from Howard and a doctorate in African and Caribbean Literature from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. She has written more than 100 essays and articles, as well as several books, examining Black women, migration, Caribbean identity, and the African diaspora.
“Eric Williams understood that scholarship carries its greatest power when it moves beyond the academy and is put into service to people, communities, and nations,” Howard Interim President Wayne A. I. Frederick said.
Frederick, who was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, said Boyce-Davies “represents that same tradition of rigorous scholarship, global engagement and service.”
Howard will formally install Boyce-Davies during a ceremony at 1 p.m. Sept. 17 at The Oliver in Washington.
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