Nelson has published articles in academic journals and popular sources, including the
Journal of Transatlantic Studies,
The Walrus Magazine,
Frieze, RACAR: Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review,
American Art, Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, and
HuffPost. She is author and editor of several books and has contributed chapters to numerous scholarly publications.
As author • ''Through an-other's eyes: white Canadian artists, Black female subjects'' (Oshawa, Ontario:
Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1998). •
The Color of Stone: Sculpting the Black Female Subject in Nineteenth-Century America (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2007). •
Representing the Black Female Subject in Western Art (New York:
Routledge, 2010). •
Slavery, Geography, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Marine Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica (London, UK: Routledge/
Taylor and Francis, 2016).
As editor •
Racism Eh?: A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada (Concord, Ontario: Captus Press, 2004). •
Ebony Roots, Northern Soil: Perspectives on Blackness in Canada (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010).
As contributing author • "Vénus africaine: race, beauty and African-ness," [chapter]
Black Victorians: black people in British art, 1800–1900, ed.
Jan Marsh (Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT:
Lund Humphries, 2005). • "Edmonia Lewis's Death of Cleopatra: White Marble, Black Bodies, and Racial Crisis in America,"
Local/Global: Women Artists in the Nineteenth-Century, eds. Deborah Cherry and Janice Helland (Aldershot, UK:
Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006). • "Speculations on the Visual: Culture, Race and Diaspora," [chapter]
Multiple Lenses: Voices from the Diaspora Located in Canada, ed. David Divine (Newcastle-upon-Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007). • "Sugar Cane, Slaves, and Ships: Colonialism, Geography and Power in Nineteenth-Century Landscapes of Montreal and Jamaica," [chapter]
Living History: Encountering the Memory of the Heirs of Slavery, ed.
Ana Lucia Araujo (New Castle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2009). • "Buried in a Watery Grave: Art, Commemoration and Racial Trauma," [chapter]
The Black Body: Imagining, Writing, and (Re)reading, eds. Michelle Goodwin, Sandra Jackson, Fassil Demisse (
University of South Africa Press, 2009). • "Blacks in White Marble: Interracial Female Subjects in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Neoclassicism," [chapter]
Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair/Body Politics in Africana Communities, eds. Regina E. Spellers and Kimberly R. Moffitt, (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc., 2010). • "The 'Hottentot Venus' in Canada: Modernism, Censorship and the Racial Limits of Female Sexuality," [chapter]
Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies, eds. Maureen Fitzgerald and Scott Rayler (Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars Press, 2012). •
Wanted (Toronto, ON:
Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017). • "Servant, Savage or Sarah: Enslaved Black Female Subjects in Canadian Art and Fugitive Slave Advertisements," [chapter]
Women in the "Promised Land" essays in African Canadian history, eds. Wanda Bernard, Boulou Ebanda and Nina Reid-Maroney (Toronto; Vancouver: Women's Press, 2018). • "Remembering Canadian Slavery. Black Subjects in Historical Quebec Art.," [chapter]
Engaging with diversity: multidisciplinary reflections on plurality from Québec, eds. Stephan Gervais, Mary Anne Poutanen and Raffaele Iacovino (Bruxelles; New York:
Peter Lang, 2018). • "Ran away from her master... a negroe girl named Thursday": examining evidence of punishment, isolation, and trauma in Nova Scotia and Quebec fugitive slave advertisements," [chapter]
Legal violence and the limits of the law, eds. Joshua Nichols and Amy Swiffen (Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018). == Recognition ==