92U and the Unterberg Poetry Center present an immersive series of lectures on all of the Nobel laureate’s novels, led by some of the nation’s most celebrated Black literary scholars.
“Toni Morrison’s fiction presents a view of how people live, love, and see each other that transcends our country and verges on the spiritual,” says Unterberg Poetry Center Managing Director Ricardo Maldonado. “2020 was such a year of mourning, and Toni gave us the language to take action in our mourning with kindness and humanity. We thought it was essential to spend time with all of her novels.”
In celebration of what would have been her 90th birthday this month, on February 25 the Unterberg Poetry Center and 92U present the first installment of Reading Toni Morrison, a year-long series of lectures on all of Morrison’s novels – from The Bluest Eye (1970) to God Help the Child (2015). Lead by some of the nation’s leading Black scholars and writers – Yvette Christiansë, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Hilton Als and Carolyn Denard, with more to be announced – the series is a historic examination of this essential body of work.
Morrison was a longtime friend of the Poetry Center, appearing on our stage numerous times over the course of her career, including for the launch of God Help the Child in 2015 – her last visit before she passed away in 2019. She may have been the greatest American novelist of her era, but she was more than a writer – a cultural icon and the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, Morrison’s pathbreaking books gave voice to lives that had been silenced for generations, illuminating new realms of the American experience with incantatory power and beauty. The Poetry Center’s curation for this series of lectures is a reflection of her monumental legacy.
“It was intentional for this series to be led by Black scholars and writers,” Maldonado continues. “Everyone leading these lectures has written extensively about Morrison. But beyond that, we wanted to find instructors who have seen themselves in these books in the deepest sense that literature can afford, and can bring other readers along with them. The best kind of class becomes almost like a work of literature in itself, created collectively. We wanted to find the kinds of scholars and writers who could provide that.”
Join us for the beginning of the series on Thursday, February 25 with a lecture from Yvette Christiansë on The Bluest Eye.