Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Isaac Saney

Associate Professor

Coordinator, Black and African Diaspora Studies

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Dalhousie University
Email: isaney@dal.ca
Telephone: 902-449-4967

Research Topics:

  • Cuban Affairs
  • African Studies

Isaac Saney is a Black Studies and Cuba specialist and coordinator of the Black and African Diaspora Studies (BAFD) program.  He holds a PhD in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London. His teaching, research and scholarship encompass Cuba, Africa, the Caribbean, Black Canadian history, the global Black liberation struggle, and reparations. A major area of his research is Cuba's relationship with Africa.  Isaac was also the Director of Dalhousie University's Transition Year Program, the ground-breaking program founded in 1970 to redress the educational barriers and injustices that confront the Mi’kmaq Nation, other Indigenous peoples in Canada, and the African Nova Scotian community. Isaac is a long-time community activist and participant in the anti-war movement and the anti-racist struggle and passionately believes in the collective power of the people to transform the world in ways that bring forth equity, justice, and human dignity. His roots lie in the African Nova Scotia community and the Caribbean.

Selected Publications

Books:

Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid’s End: Africa’s Children Return! (Lexington Books, 2023).

Cuba: A Revolution in Motion. London and Halifax (Zed books, 2004.

Dossier on Palestine (Shunpiking Magazine, 2002) ed. with Tony Seed and Gary Zatzman

Academic Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

  • Cuba is Africa, Africa is Cuba, in Cuban International Relations at 60: Reflections on Global Connections. Lanham, MD. Lexington, 2021.
  • Dreaming Revolution: Tricontinentalism, Anti-Imperialism and Third World Rebellion in The Handbook of South-South Relations ed. by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Patricia Daley. New York. Routledge, 2019.
  • Lord Dalhousie Panel and the International Decade for People of African Descent: Recognition, Reconciliation, and Recompense: Brief Reflections, in Report on Lord Dalhousie’s History on Slavery and Race. Halifax. Dalhousie University, 2019.
  • Cuba and Africa under Raúl Castro: Recasting Old Relations in New But Very Familiar Ways in Cuba’s Foreign Relations Under Raúl Castro ed. by Michael Erisman and John Kirk.  Boulder, CO. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
  • Is Class Race, and Race Class? Blacks, the Cuban Revolution and the 1970s in Cuba’s Forgotten Decade: How the 1970s Shaped the Revolution ed. Emily J. Kirk; Anna Clayfeild and Isabel Story. Lanham, MD. Lexington Books, 2018.
  • Radical internationalism: Race, Colonialism, History in What Moves Us: The Lives and Times of the Radical Imagination ed. by Alex Khasnabish and Max Haiven. Halifax: Fernwood, 2017.
  • North of Havana: Canada-Cuba Solidarity and the Canadian Polity- A Brief Overview in Cuba Solidarity in Canada - Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations, ed. Nino Pagliccia, Vancouver: Canadian Network On Cuba, 2014.
  • History from a Critical Development Perspective in Tools for Change: A Handbook for Critical Development Studies, ed. Henry Veltmeyer. London and Halifax: Pluto Press, 2011.
  • Homeland of Humanity: Internationalism within the Cuban Revolution, Latin
  • American Perspectives, Vol. 36, No. 1, September 2009: 111-123.
  • Emancipation Now! Africans, Rebellion and the End of Slavery, Directions: Research
  • Journal of Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer 2007:73-78.
  • African Stalingrad: The Cuban Revolution, Internationalism and the End of Apartheid,
  • Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 35, No. 5, September 2006: 81-117.
  • La Politica Economia Secondo La “Docttrina Bush,” (with Gary Zatzman and M. Rafiqul Islam), Inchiesta: Revista Trimestral, Anno XXXV (Vol. 35), No. 14, Gennaio/Marzo (January/March) 2005: 37-40.
  • Cuba and Venezuela in Debate, NACLA Report on the Americas, 2005, No. 39:2 & 46.
  • The Case Against To Kill a Mockingbird, Race and Class, Vol. 45, No. 1, Vol. 45, No. 1, July/September 2003: 99-105.
  • Canada: The Black Nova Scotian Odyssey, Race and Class, Vol. 40, No. 1, July/September 1998: 79-91.