As part of the Thursday lectures series, Claudine Raynaud, Emeritus Professor of American Literature at the Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3, will give a lecture entitled "Toni Morrison (1931-2019): beyond fiction". Organised by the University of Guyana's Culture Commission and the MINEA laboratory, the lecture will take place on Thursday 20 October 2022 at 6:30pm in Amphithéâtre A.
Toni Morrison, the first black American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, died on 5 August 2019. This lecture sets out to compare her eleven novels, from The Bluest Eye (1970) to Deliverance (2015), with her other contributions, which make her a committed intellectual. As an editor, Morrison has brought many black American authors to the attention of the public, while overseeing the publication of The Black Book (1974), a book-herb on black American history. She has compiled articles in response to the controversies of her time, such as Race-ing Justice, Engender-ing Power (1992), which deals with the appointment of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. She has written a libretto for the opera Margaret Garner (2005) and two plays, Dreamling Emmett (1985) and Desdemona (2011), a retelling of Othello. Continuing her fight against censorship with Burn this Book (2012), she has co-written children's books with her son Slade. At the time of #Blacklivesmatter, she is refining her reflections on literature and racism with The Origin of Others (2017), prefaced by Ta-Nehisi Coates (A Black Wrath) and a sequel to the masterful Playing in the Dark. Blancheur et imagination littéraire (1992). A posthumous gift from this great committed intellectual, La Source de l'amour propre (2019) is an anthology of writings and meditations that brings together forty contributions.
