Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison addressed the Hopkins and greater Baltimore community Wednesday night, helping launch the new Center for Africana Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences.
The gray-haired Princeton professor addressed a packed Shriver Hall as well as a smaller audience in Hodson Hall, where the lecture was broadcasted by closed-circuit, to give her remarks on the nature of Africana studies, especially in the realm of literary criticism.
"[There was a] whispered conversation taking place within the realm of Africana studies and literature," Morrison began, "and the beginnings of Canon formation in Africana studies." She proceeded to explain her views in the early '80s of how scholars had spent so much time defending the fact that Africana culture and literature existed, that they had no time to create or produce.
"[I sought to] create non-racist, yet race-specific within a race-inflicted, language. I chose to write as though there was nothing to prove or disprove, to claim the liberty of my own imagination."
Recognizing that it was impossible to envision or write about a race-free or non-race dominant society, Morrison said she attempted to control the linguistic and metaphoric language that is free from race-inflicted language to "deactivate their lazy, unearned powers ... [to] write outside those white gates, not against them."
Morrison credited this desire to separate linguistics from race from her frustrations about constantly being asked to talk about racism to various colleges, saying, "Why ask a victim to explain the torture?"
The lecture then proceeded to show the two philosophies behind Africana studies, one focusing on the study as a vaccination for intolerance, and the other as field that was "naturally immune from racism." In the first model, Morrison described a study of a wounded history's pathology and a hope that it would bring "restorative balms," but she disagreed with the belief that, "It is our job to solve ourselves." She also criticized the second view, saying it was "[the] self-serving, defensive rhetoric of denial."
It was for these reasons, she explained, that she initially chose not to enter the Africana literary criticism. However, she soon decided to join for wariness about re-segregation of Africana studies from others, that the study "could, but need not, confine itself because the scholarly subject was like the racism problem itself."
According to Morrison, race was at the heart of every policy, from taxing to education and housing, and was not left out of any scholarly study from medicine to sociology. In her view the studies had a much wider terrain than was originally thought.
Because of this, Morrison emphasized how important it was to fight for the purity of education and for the sound history that mired the integrity of the learning experience. "There will come a time," Morrison said, "when universities will have to fight for the privilege of intellectual freedom."
The speech opened and closed with a standing ovation from the audience. Individuals also asked questions after the speech, varying from her experience at her alma mater Howard University to views on affirmative action.
It was during this time that Morrison showed much of her humorous side as she mentioned getting a certain idea from Chris Rock and various other humorous anecdotes and comments that were well-received by the audience.
A representative from the office of Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski presented Morrison with a letter of welcome to Baltimore and Maryland, and wished that she would visit again.
Morrison is the author of numerous critically acclaimed novels including The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Jazz, Paradise, and Love. In 1988 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved, which was later turned into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.
In 1993, the Nobel Committee honored her with the Nobel Prize in Literature saying her writing is characterized by visionary force and poetic impact and that she gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.
A graduate from both Howard and Cornell Universities, she has taught at the University of Michigan, Syracuse University, and Yale University, among others.
She currently is the Robert Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University.
The sponsoring Center for Africana Studies was established in the fall of 2003, and specializes in Africana studies, African-American studies, and the study of the African diaspora.
It offers both a major and minor to undergraduate students and was started through the motivation of faculty and interested students, especially the Black Student Union.
