Toni Morrison (Prof'in. Dr. Schäfer)

In this course, we will study the fiction of one of the most significant contemporary American novelists – Toni Morrison. Nobel laureate, Pulitzer Prize winner, and bestselling author, Morrison (1931 – 2019) focused in her work on the experiences of African Americans (especially Black women) and on the history of race politics in the United States. Her novels often examine the devastating effects of anti-Black racism and of sexist discrimination; they ask how violence may be endured and how traumatizing events can be remembered. Exploring the place of the imagination in the construction of personal and collective histories, Morrison’s novels experiment with narrative form and invite the readers to engage in forms of participatory reading. In this class, we will read select novels from the entire span of Morrison’s career, including The Bluest Eye (1970) and Beloved (1987), and complement our study of her fiction with readings from her literary and social criticism, as collected in Playing in the Dark (1992) and The Source of Self-Regard (2019).