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Announcing the Calgary launch of OmiSoore Dryden's Got Blood to Give: Anti-Black Homophobia in Blood Donation! Through storytelling, theorizing and discourse analysis, this book investigates how anti-Black homophobic nation-building policies became enshrined in blood donation. Join us at Shelf Life Books on February 5, 2025 at 7:00 PM for a thought-provoking discussion of her new book in conversation with Malinda S. Smith. The event will feature a reading, Q&A session, and book signing.
Grab your copy of Got Blood to Give here.
ABOUT GOT BLOOD TO GIVE:
Our blood has stories to tell, and we are told stories about blood. Globally, blood is a story that is built — whose blood counts, whose blood spills and whose blood is of use. The history of blood donation practices in Canada speaks to the larger blood story of anti-Black racism, evident since the country’s founding. Through storytelling, theorizing and discourse analysis, Got Blood to Give examines how anti-Black homophobic nation-building policies became enshrined in blood donation systems.
OmiSoore H. Dryden, a Black queer femme academic and the foremost scholar on Canadian blood donation practices, examines contaminated blood crises in the 1980s and 1990s, Canadian Red Cross Society, and Canadian Blood Services. She contextualizes contemporary homonationalisms, medical anti-Black racism, homophobia and transphobia in blood-related practices, connecting blood stories with health disparities affecting Black and Black queer populations.
From a BlaQueer disasporic theoretical lens, this book uses narrative as method to show how healthcare systems continue to propagate anti-Blackness.
ABOUT OMISOORE H.DRYDEN
Dr. OmiSoore H. Dryden (she/her/hers), a Black queer femme and professor at Dalhousie University. Her academic appointments include, founding Director of the Black Studies Research Institute (in STEMM), the James R Johnston Endowed Research Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Faculty of Medicine (2019-2024), and co-founder and co-lead of the national organization, the Black Health Education Collaborative. OmiSoore engages in interdisciplinary scholarship and research that focuses on Black LGBTQI communities, blood donation systems in Canada, and addressing anti-Black racism in healthcare and medical education, and developing Black health curricular content. Her book, Got Blood to Give: Anti-Black Homophobia in Blood Donation was published by Fernwood Publishing (Nov 2024).
