Born in Brasov, Romania in 1973, Monica Popescu was a star student throughout her studies. After receiving degrees from the University of Bucharest, the University of Windsor, and the University of Pennsylvania, she began teaching at McGill in 2005, where she taught courses on African literatures, literary and social theory, imperialism, gender studies, and the Cold War. On February 24, after a year-long battle with glioblastoma, Monica passed away at age 50.

In her presence, we were all Monica’s students. Her commitment to anticolonial pedagogy challenged what this university and a liberal arts education could be—she always “moved the centre” to use Ngũgĩ’s phrase. In teaching the mandatory survey course for English literature majors, she passionately lectured about African, Caribbean, and South Asian histories, literary traditions, and revolutionary struggles. Over many eagerly anticipated office hour visits, her encyclopedic knowledge, fierce determination, and tender soul enchanted me, as did our discussions on Zoe Wicomb, post-Communist politics, and campus organizing. I was lucky to have Monica as my Honours supervisor and to grow under her exuberant light, warmth, and mentorship. Her words, lessons, and generosity fortify me—I will miss her dearly. 

Below, Monica’s students, colleagues, and friends share their memories of this beloved scholar.

Monica Popescu made so many things possible. She was one of the most brilliant and insightful scholars I’ve ever met—and also one of the kindest, most down-to-earth, and committed friends. During our twelve years together at McGill, we published, edited, and organized several transformative books and symposia. She brought celebrated writer, activist, and professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o to McGill—a watershed. We shared jokes, stories, lunches, karaoke sessions, birthday celebrations, and walks.

And there was so much more work left to do. Her loss leaves a yawning abyss. Its pain ripples through all the lives she touched. I know that Monica’s legacy will live on through our work and our tributes. – Katherine Zien, Associate Professor, Department of English

“It is a truth universally acknowledged” that Monica had a deep love of Jane Austen and a penchant for all things Regency. We never got to attend a Jane Austen theme weekend at the Governor’s House in Vermont or to co-teach a course on decolonizing the Regency, as we had hoped. But “let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.” Austen wrote that “perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common” but attending the immersive Bridgerton ball experience with my dear friend was one such moment of perfect happiness and a memory that I’ll always cherish. – Fiona Ritchie, Associate Professor, Department of English

Monica came into my life ten years ago and we felt close almost instantly. Her easy laugh and generous, heartfelt compliments broke your defences and brought out something more elevated in people she encountered. She infused a vibrant and joyful spirit into the academic projects we embarked on together. Monica had a talent for deep literary readings fused with a critical historical analysis. She brilliantly expanded the field of Cold War literary and cultural studies, a legacy that we must all strive to uphold and amplify. – Bhakti Shringarpure, Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut

Professor Monica Popescu was a phenomenal and humane person and a stellar scholar. Monica possessed a profound respect for African literatures, and she shaped generations of students at McGill. Monica was an exemplary educator. Her love of Africa infused the African Studies Program with a weight and intellectual gravitas belied by its still limited resources. Whenever Monica was around, we all knew that African Studies had a home and that it had a future at McGill. Such was her electric energy that she almost single-handedly centred Africa on campus. The renowned Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, famously warned of the danger of Africa being contemplated in terms of that ‘single story,’ that single narrative, and how this often robs readers and writers alike of understanding Africa’s full diversity and humanity. Monica never needed to be taught that cautionary tale. At McGill University she taught all of us that this particular lesson was as profound as commonsense. – Khalid Medani, Chair of African Studies 

As everyone who knew her will attest, Monica Popescu was a profoundly capacious human being. In addition to being a brilliant and groundbreaking scholar, she was incredibly generous in mind and spirit. Monica wanted her students to have the opportunities that she had, and she went out of her way not only to open doors that would have remained closed but to devote her energy to transforming their minds and lives. Within the Department of English, I always thought of Monica as the “gold standard.” What I mean by that is that I always felt that her intelligence, political beliefs, and ethical integrity were the keystone to our department. Monica proved that one could be at the very top of their scholarly field without sacrificing time for their students, or one ounce of their kindness. She was also a dear friend, who was always so supportive of every one of my endeavours. I loved her and will miss her beyond measure. – Ara Osterweil, Associate Professor, Department of English

“I am so glad you could come—I have heard a lot about you from common friends.” These were Monica’s words to me when we met for the first time—in the corridor connecting Arts to Leacock, during my campus visit in February 2013. In a few months, Monica became my departmental colleague and fellow “postcolonialist” (notwithstanding, as I was soon to realize, that we shared a disdain for that term). But she was also, as I would call her, my fellow co-conspirator and a dear, dear friend.

We all know of her formidable scholarship but what may be less obvious is how warm and generous she was to others; how encouraging of others as they pursued their own lines of thinking. Monica embodied warmth, joy, and laughter, and was one of the kindest people I have had the privilege to call a friend. And she was funny. I recall one Montreal winter evening she arrived late for drinks: “Sorry I got late,” she said as she entered the bar on Avenue du Parc. “I slipped on the snow and fell—I think I am a fallen woman now.”

This was just one of the many memories I have of sharing a meal or a drink (often several drinks) with her. These moments were times to catch up and compare notes: about course texts and syllabi but also about new restaurants in Montreal and possible endings to the Game of Thrones (Monica preferred the novels to the television show). She initiated me to the joys of mici, the Romanian sausage, on one such outing; on another, I introduced her to the classic Bollywood song “Monica, my darling.” Her laughter at seeing the video—the legendary Helen, twisting and twirling to the words—still rings in my ears. Monica leaves us poorer—I miss the warmth, joy, and that sparkling laughter that she brought to all our lives. She was, simply put, wonderful. Or as she would have said, in that incantatory joyfulness that was so singularly her: “wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!” – Sandeep Banerjee, Associate Professor, Department of English

Monica probably had the premonition that she wasn’t going to be here forever, so she packed the goodness of five lifetimes into just five decades. Unarguably the kindest academic I ever met. Sad that I knew her too late. Sad that she had to go the way she did. – Onyeka Dike, MA ‘23

Of Stars and Grief (for Monica Popescu, 1973-2024)

I started this note without tears in my eyes

I started this note with a kind of beautiful denial

I started this note from a place some of us have known:

grief—that city we must all reach, that unmapped terrain.

I refused to believe Monica is no more, that Brasov’s pearl lies still

I cannot imagine that she will sleep subterraneanly somewhere in the city

I am haunted by Monica’s eternal silence

Even my words are reluctant in their acceptance:

Monica is no more—her breath is history.

My people say that those the gods love do not live long

They kiss the world just enough to complete their mission

They leave us, we who outlive them, with a rare gift:

A lifetime of the best memories, a bowl of endless affects

From the mountains of Transylvania to the estuaries of Pennsylvania

From the prairies of Windsor to the rapids of the St. Lawrence:

Everything and everyone bear testimony to Monica’s existence

The favourite of the gods and of mortals: Monica lived

We all testify with tears in our eyes.

Mathias Orhero, PhD candidate in the Department of English

Read the full tributes below:

Monica was one of the most welcoming, open-hearted, and collaborative friends and colleagues. When I arrived at McGill, I was eager to meet her. She took me out to lunch and for a Labrador tea. I was immediately charmed by her gentle, kind, and enthusiastic nature. A bit later, we started to realize that our research interests intersected in important ways. I was becoming fascinated by the Cold War in Latin America, and she was at work on what would become the ground-breaking At Penpoint. She invited me to several workshops of the African studies group in Montreal, and we organized a colloquium on ‘Third World aesthetics’ and invited amazing scholars and people to take part. Monica’s academic circles were so cool. Shortly thereafter, we would start working on our edited volume, The Cultural Cold War and the Global South: Sites of Contest and Communitas. With the fantastic Kerry Bystrom, we created this book – a community, really – including many of our friends and colleagues working on literature, theatre, film, and visual art throughout the global south during the Cold War years. Although our work intersected with the Covid pandemic, our zooms kept us going. It was a wonderful collaboration.

Monica started a book series and included me and Sandeep Banerjee as co-editors. She welcomed us into this collaboration, and I was so appreciative. She also invited Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o to speak at McGill around 2016 – a watershed event. I was in the first trimester of pregnancy and completely exhausted, but this event was so amazing. Meeting Ngugi and hearing him speak will forever be one of the highlights of my professional and personal life. Monica made so many things possible. And throughout she remained one of the kindest, most down-to-earth, and committed scholars and people I’ve known. Her loss is huge and resonates on so many levels. She touched so many lives. The unfairness of her passing so young, before she could finish her several works in progress on world literature and Ngũgĩ, is so painful. I know, however, that her legacy will live on through our work and our tributes.

Monica was both a cherished colleague and a great friend. She and I enjoyed lunches at Mamaia, having her homemade sour soup with mici, karaoke with Fiona and Alanna, tea at café Aunja, birthday dinners, and chats in the hallways. Seeing the light on in her cheery yellow office always made me happy. She would regularly come and knock on my door with a story or joke to share. Her eyes had a wonderfully impish twinkle, full of humor and keen intellect. She was stylish and flamboyant and perceptive and proud and funny and brilliant and totally special and unique. My only regret is that we didn’t spend more time together. I will miss her forever. – Katherine Zien, Associate Professor, Department of English

Professor Monica Popescu was a phenomenal and humane person and a stellar scholar. What I remember most is the students who would come up to me and say do you know of her course, it is terrific. I didn’t know that African literatures were so fascinating. Monica possessed a profound respect for African literatures, and she shaped the thinking of that genre for generations of students at McGill. Monica was an exemplary educator. Her love of Africa infused the African Studies Program with a weight and intellectual gravitas belied by its still limited resources. Whenever Monica was around, we all knew that African Studies had a home and that it had a future at McGill. Such was her electric energy that she almost single-handedly centered Africa on campus. When she taught more broadly thematic courses on English language literature, she made sure African literature was included as an integral rather than a peripheral part of her syllabi and curriculum. She refused to situate African authors on the margins or represent them as outside of the canonical texts as is so common elsewhere. Monica was also a generous colleague far more interested in building an intellectual community around African Studies across the disciplines rather than pursue a singular and narrow path in her work and life. For Monica, the joy of education was embedded in community. Monica also represented something else: perhaps more profound in its learning properties; more resonate in its teaching moments. While she was not from Africa, she quietly modeled for non-Africans how scholars working on Africa can teach Africa on its own terms absent epistemologies borrowed from the Eurocentric tradition. Few professors enjoyed such loyalty from African students and an earned trust from all students wary of the misrepresentation of Africa and Africans in and outside the classroom. At a time when conversations around the ‘decolonization of the curriculum’ have emerged as immensely important but also disappointingly controversial, Monica was surprised at this controversy, this dispute over representing and centering African voices in literature. After all, she had been engaged in just such a project for years throughout her career. For Monica this came naturally, it was unremarkable, it was right, and it was just. More importantly, it was simply the love of literature. Her legacy then was to mute the facile debate over what constitutes ‘grand’ and canonical literature, and to include everyone across the false divides of nationality, race, and gender. One always knew that Africa and Africans were safe in her company and that she would interject a kindness and empathy whenever she entered a classroom, an African Studies Program meeting, or just when she took the time to talk to you over a cup of coffee. The renowned Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi, famously warned of the danger of Africa being contemplated in terms of that ‘single story,’ that single narrative, and how this often robs readers and writers alike of understanding Africa’s full diversity and humanity. Monica never needed to be taught that cautionary tale. At McGill University she taught all of us that that this particularly lesson was as profound as commonsense. – Khalid Medani, Chair of African Studies

Of Stars and Grief (for Monica Popescu, 1973-2024)

Mathias Orhero, PhD Candidate in the Department of English

I started this note without tears in my eyes
I started this note with a kind of beautiful denial
I started this note from a place some of us have known:
grief – that city we must all reach, that unmapped terrain.

I refused to believe Monica is no more, that Brasov’s pearl lies still
I cannot imagine that she will sleep subterraneanly somewhere in the city
I am haunted by Monica’s eternal silence
Even my words are reluctant in their acceptance:
Monica is no more – her breath is history.

As the first tears I shed trickled from my eyes
They forged an image of Monica on my mind:
I remembered last night’s dream of stars and stardust: cosmic elements vital to our existence
A star is formed from the forces of fusion and gravity within cosmic clouds
They shine and illuminate the universe, pulling cosmic forms into orbit
When their energy is spent, they become iron, sprinkled across the universe
In life or death, they shine bright and spread across the eternal, infinite void.

Monica was made of the same elements as the stars
Her presence was luminous, boldly wrestling the darkness of our world
She was the brightest star around – creating the orbital motion of everything
The gravity she pulled allowed things to swim easily:
Those caught in her orbit sing of beauty, harmony, motion
Their tongues confess Monica’s stellar simplicity
Their eyes bear witness to Monica’s exemplarity
Even now, they sing and weave tales of Monica’s luminosity

A nebula is where stars are born: where creation unfolds
Monica comes from Orion, one of the brightest ones
She danced to the music of the spheres, natalized the libra constellation
Her colours are rare – those you see once and feel fulfilled
Monica now dances again with the stars –
Look towards the night sky, she is Polaris, guiding us all
Her cosmic story tells us that the brightest things in the universe are not far from us.

My people say that those the gods love do not live long
They kiss the world just enough to complete their mission
They leave us, we who outlive them, with a rare gift:
A life time of the best memories, a bowl of endless affects
From the mountains of Transylvania to the estuaries of Pennsylvania
From the prairies of Windsor to the rapids of the St. Lawrence:
Everything and everyone bear testimony to Monica’s existence
The favourite of the gods and of mortals: Monica lived
We all testify with tears in our eyes.