The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison

(Hardback)

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The most substantial collection of critical essays on Morrison to appear since her death in mid-2019, this book contains previously unpublished essays which both acknowledge the universal significance of her writing even as they map new directions. Essayists include pre-eminent Morrison scholars, as well as scholars who work in cultural criticism, African American letters, American modernism, and womens writing. The book includes work on Morrison as a public intellectual; work which places Morrisons writing within todays currents of contemporary fiction; work which draws together Morrisons trilogy of Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise alongside Dos Passos USA trilogy; work which links Morrison to such Black Atlantic artists as Lubaina Himid and others as well as work which offers a reading of influence that goes both directions between Morrison and Faulkner. Another cluster of essays treats seldom-discussed works by Morrison, including an essay on Morrison as writer of childrens books and as speaker for childrens education. In addition, a Teaching Morrison section is designed to help teachers and critics who teach Morrison in undergraduate classes. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison is wide-ranging, provocative, and satisfying; a fitting tribute to one of the greatest American novelists.

Reviews

This rich cornucopia of insights and analysis by some of our most important scholars of American literature belongs on the bookshelf of everyone interested in the work of Americas greatest novelist and social commentator, Toni Morrison. * Cathy N. Davidson, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor on Transformation and Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA *
This is a mighty and necessary tome. Its complexity, fullness, and thoughtfulness compose a model of due diligence. It will be a critical resource for students and scholars as it re-members Toni Morrisons extraordinary oeuvre in ways that assist, provoke, probe and consider the composure of her literary genius. This generous guide beautifully excavates Morrisons declaration that we do language[the]measure of our lives. * Karla FC Holloway, James B. Duke Professor Emerita of English and Law, Duke University, USA *
The Bloomsbury Handbook to Toni Morrison is a generative, multi-perspectival resource for teachers, students, and/or general readers. It illuminates many facets of and approaches to Morrisons wide-ranging work across genres, eras, geographies, and expressive mediums. * Mara DeGuzmn, Eugene H. Falk Distinguished Professor of English & Comparative Literature, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA *

Author Bio

Kelly Reames is Associate Professor of English at Western Kentucky Unviersity, USA. Linda Wagner-Martin is Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She was the 2011 recipient of the Hubbell Medal for lifetime service in American literature (sponsored by the MLA), and has received the Guggenheim fellowship, the senior National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, the Bunting Institute fellowship, and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Philosophical Association and others. She has published more than fifty-five books of criticism, some edited, including Sylvia Plath: A Biography (1987) and Favored Strangers: Gertrude Stein and Her Family (1995), as well as studies of Ernest Hemingway, Zelda Fitzgerald, Barbara Kingsolver, and others. Recent books are A History of American Literature from 1950 to the Present (2013) and Toni Morrison and the Maternal (2014).