Research
Beauty in a Box
Dr. Thompson's first book, Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada's Black Beauty Culture, is one of the first transnational, feminist studies of Canada’s black beauty culture and the role that media, retail, and consumers have played in its development, Beauty in a Box widens our understanding of the politics of black hair.
Beauty in a Box uses an interdisciplinary framework, engaging with African American history, critical race and cultural theory, consumer culture theory, media studies, diasporic art history, black feminism, visual culture, film studies, and political economy to explore the history of black beauty culture in both Canada and the United States.
AI, the final frontier - evil robots taking over society or educational tool?
Oftentimes when we hear the words artificial intelligence, we think of futuristic technologies, Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, or Haley Joel Osment in Steven Spielberg’s classic. This is why when the professor of my Creative Negotiation class at Ryerson University told us we’d be using an AI simulation, many of us were confused, intrigued, and slightly terrified to be dealing with something so inhuman. I watched as hands in the classroom shot up with questions, trying to understand the intricacies of dealing with artificial educators rather than real ones. But what we quickly realized, is that they’re not nearly as inhuman as we thought.
