WEBVTT - Toni Morrison: Nobel-Winning Novelist 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:08.080 He says at one point in that lecture, language can 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:12.440 only art towards the place where meaning may lie, and 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.200 it ends on a note of hope for what can 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.200 happen when you stop marginalizing the other, when you stop 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.959 seeing the person totally as only different from you, but 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:30.720 not connected to your humanity? That was Dr Marilyn Mobley 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.080 talking about Tony Morrison and the lecture she gave when 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.040 she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Morrison was the 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.839 first African American woman to win that prize, and The 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.239 New York Times called her the towering novelist of the 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.960 Black experience. I'm a land Ververe and this is senecas 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.200 one d women to hear. We are bringing you one 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.120 hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:02.440 you need to hear. You may have encountered Tony Morrison's 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.720 books on the bestseller lists, or in a college class, 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.840 or through Oprah's Book Club. Among her best known works 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:15.760 are The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved. Doctor. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.800 Marilyn Mowbley knows Morrison's books well. She is a former 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.760 president of the Tony Morrison Society and Professor Emerita of 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.560 English and African American Studies at Case Western Reserve University. 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.800 Listen and learn from doctor Marilyn Mowbley why Tony Morrison 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:40.560 is one of Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear. We 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.319 are speaking today with doctor Marilyn Mobley about the great, 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.920 great writer Tony Morrison. Welcome, doctor Mobley. Thank you, it's 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.600 good to be here. It is such a pleasure to 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.480 have you with us. I know that you've done much 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.720 work as studying Tony Morrison, who was an acclaimed writer 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.920 and editor, and among her many honors, she was awarded 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:07.760 the Novel Prize for Literature for books like Beloved, The 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:12.799 Bluest Eyes, Song of Solomon, and so many more. In 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.880 your view, what was her singular achievement and what should 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.320 she be remembered for. I thank you for that question. 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.919 I always wonder about the words singular when I think 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.840 about Tony Morrison. She always seemed larger than life to me. 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.320 But for I think she should be known for being 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.320 a phenomenal writer who made space for two things at once, 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:42.280 unapologetically affirming the humanity of black people, especially black women, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.239 and of critiquing the racial imaginary and its effect on 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.000 the well being of this nation. I think she just 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:53.480 did such a wonderful job of holding both of those 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:58.840 things in place, unapologetically affirming the humanity of black people 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:04.120 and routine mainly critiquing how race and racism operated in 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.760 this country, and she did it better than some. I 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.000 think she'll also be remembered for being able to talk 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:16.679 about these issues with language, narrative, an eloquence that had 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.720 a kind of piercing clarity about them. She was able 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:25.880 to talk about unspeakable things unspoken, as she called them, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.280 and other people may have tried, but she was able 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:34.960 to get our attention in ways that other people could not. 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:37.960 And I mentioned the word humanity, and I guess what 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.080 I would add to that is complexity, because it seems 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:46.200 to me, before Tony Morrison, some of the representations of 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:52.000 black people were simplistic and lacking in depth. But after 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.320 she began writing, many of us felt the complexity that 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.760 we know to be part of our community suddenly came 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.680 to life on the page, and everybody had to take note. Yea, 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.600 she not only moved despite the way she wrote in 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:11.360 her work, but she's certainly broadened our depth in the 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.920 way that you just said, depth of understanding Now, you 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.760 mentioned that she brought us in many ways the black 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.080 experience in America through her writing, usually obviously from a 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.440 female perspective. So how did being a woman inform her 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.760 writing or perhaps make a special in some way? I 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:35.960 really liked that question because I believe she recognized how 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.000 in the works of other people, black women were often 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:44.960 marginalized or dismissed or minor characters, and in her writing, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.480 black women became center. We were able to see ourselves 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.760 in writing at the center of the story instead of 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:58.000 as add on or as minor characters, as marginal characters. 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:03.160 And even when she wrote and had male characters at 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.200 the center, such as The Song of Solomon, the protagonists 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.360 in that book, Milkman did is a as a man. 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:14.080 And in one of her later novels, in the novel Home, 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.960 the character Money is at the center. But even in 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.840 those novels where men have more of a central role, 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.000 which was different from most of her works, she still 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.720 had women being critical to their lives and showing the 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.760 importance of women even in the character and even in 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.159 the lives of men. And I just think for many 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.280 women readers that was important to understand that we've were 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:43.599 the center of our narratives, not always the center of somebody, 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.120 not always the margin of someone else's narrative. And that 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.120 was really important for her, and it was really important 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.479 for her readers, and many of the critics talked about that. 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.839 Often in my classes, I was teaching her by herself. 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.920 Sometimes I was taching her in a course for women writers. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.880 Often I taught her of course and a um and 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:09.120 of course that was African American literature, American literature. But 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.279 there was nothing like teaching, and of course that was 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.040 for women writers, so that women could see how this 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:21.520 woman writer treated our stories and our lives. So interesting. 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.760 What was it that that drew you to her writing, 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.359 because you obviously can speak about her with great depth 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.080 of understanding, Well, I will, I will say the first 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.680 thing that attracted me to her it's probably not very 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:38.039 literary at all, but it's the fact that she was 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.719 from Ohio. She was an Ohio writer, from Lorraine, Ohio, 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.440 not far from my hometown of Akron, Ohio. And when 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.480 I read The Bluest Eye and saw the name of 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:52.640 my city in the novel, I said, oh, this is 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:59.520 a wonderful writer. All things are local, that's right, that's right. 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.599 So I must admit, you know, it's kind of a 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.159 shameless admission that I was attracted to the fact that 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.000 she was an Ohio writer and a black woman writer 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.640 writing about small town life in one sense, and also 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.000 writing about what it was like to be a black 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:19.760 girl in America. I was just totally attracted to that. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.760 And even though she was talking about poverty, and I 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.400 didn't grow up poor and she didn't grow up poor, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.480 we knew poor people in our community. And that's partly 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.880 what she's doing in that novel is saying there are 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:39.760 people who are often other who are other demonized, sometimes stigmatized, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.720 and sometimes scapegoating. It was looking at the ways in 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.400 which people in a community could scapegoat. And even as 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.640 a college student when I read that, I remember thinking, yes, 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.840 I saw people scapegoated in my community, and she's really 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:59.040 capturing how that works. But I know, if I'm honest, 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.040 and I'm going to be this, I was first attracted 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.560 to oh acrone Is in her novel Okay, well then 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.640 this is a good writer. Well you know, whatever it takes, 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:13.200 and look how it's propelled you into being a extraordinary 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:17.120 expert on Tony Morrison. Today was the Bluest Guy the 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.440 first of her novels that you read. It was the 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.480 first that I read. And I also was attracted in 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.800 The Bluest Eye to how she made education front and center. 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:32.559 My UH degree at Bernard was in English and education, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.400 and so I was already interested in literature anyway. I 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:41.040 just have always been a bookworm. Actually, so Tony Morrison 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.000 would probably say the same thing about herself. I was 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:48.560 intrigued with how it talked about education and those Dick 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.559 and James primers that we all well, I don't know 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:55.040 now that's the case, but many of us were introduced 0:08:55.080 --> 0:09:00.000 to literacy through that primer. Like Tony Morrison, I went 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.800 away to kindergarten knowing how to read and write. And 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:08.040 in a couple of her interviews, she talked about that, 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.000 coming to kindergarten knowing how to read and write, and 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.480 I did as well. I like the way The Bluest Eye, however, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.880 problematized that and and said there are images that you 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:23.040 get as early as kindergarten that deny your humanity, that 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.400 makes you feel less than if you're a black girl. 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.320 And I just thought it was so important. I quickly 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.720 caught the bug, and so as soon as Sula came out. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:37.120 I read Sula because Sula was about female friendship, and 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.840 many women can relate to this. Sometimes it happens in 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.720 high school, sometimes it happens in college. But Tony Morrison 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.600 captured that phenomenon of women starting out the gate as 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.680 very close friends and then going separate ways, sometimes because 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.120 one goes to college and one does not, as it 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.360 happened in that novel, one gets married and one does not. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.080 One makes life toy is that are so different, and 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.200 then the friendship gets free or intense in a way 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.839 that it never had been before. And I just think 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.000 she captured that so well. I was. I was really 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.440 drawn to that novel for what it said. I had 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.560 seen it in my own life of having friendships, and 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.360 once I went away to school, people weren't sure what 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.439 would happen to the friendship, and Morrison just interrogated that 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.920 with with laser focus. Now. I know she died in 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.480 two thousand and nineteen, but if she had lived, she'd 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.000 be nine this month. Tell us about her childhood and 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.280 her young adulthood. You already told us she grew up 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.680 in Lorain, Ohio. But what was it about her growing 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.079 up that turned her into a writer. I think that's 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.400 a wonderful question, because I don't know that she always 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.640 knew she was a writer. But when I look back 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:58.840 on what I learned about her life from my own 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.800 reading and even in documentary on her called The Pieces 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.360 I Am, which came out the same year of her death, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.800 there was lots of father There was lots of evidence 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:11.760 that she would become a writer. There was a lot 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:16.040 of storytelling in her home, her mother saying in the 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.560 church choir and was always at home singing. When she 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.520 was a teenager, she worked at the local library, and 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.720 she uh finally used to tell that she didn't she 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.360 didn't really do her job so well because she they 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.679 would catch her reading all the time. She was supposed 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.839 to be shelving books, and she was reading. And so 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.360 I would say, as an English professor, for me, that 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.160 was she was getting prepared. She was getting prepared to 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.880 write by being immersed in books, and by being immersed 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.800 in the storytelling tradition she heard in her home, and 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.959 the the ear for music that she got from listening 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:58.760 to her mother sing. And I think all of those 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.439 things prepared her to it ready to write. Even if 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.640 she weren't writing it. We do know that she began 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.760 what became The Bluest Eye when she was a college 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:12.000 student at Howard University, but it didn't become a novel immediately, 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.960 didn't become a novel until later. And I also think 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.720 the fact that she was part of the Howard Players 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.120 when she was an undergraduate school at Howard University. So 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.319 there's an actress in Tony Morrison, and sometimes you can 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.120 hear that in her audio books. I personally don't like audiobooks, 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.000 but I have listened to her read and there's some 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.080 drama in her reading that says she was attracted to 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.320 language and literature from several angles, from the sound of it, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:45.760 from narrative and language, and just for what could happen 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.760 when you brought narrative and language and sound together on 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.400 the page. I think she was intrigued with all of that. 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.640 And she had heard about and witnessed how racism acted 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.439 in this country. Her father there left the South and 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.000 went north because of lynching, and she said she had 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.920 always heard it was racial terrorism, but she had never 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:14.280 heard what she called the clarifying details actually until she 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.400 went with us in the Tony Morrison Society to her 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:22.760 father's home in Cartersville, and she heard the historian tell 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:27.040 the story of how her father, George Wafford, left the South. 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:31.600 He had heard about another friend who was scheduled to 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.600 be lynch and I always like to tell my students 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.600 that were scheduled must have stuck in his mind that 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.920 it was planned, that was a planned event that people 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:46.160 took delight in. Um. But in any event, the stories 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.600 of lynching that he had witnessed and heard about made 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.000 her father move north to Lorraine, Ohio. And so I 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:57.360 think all of this history and family history and national 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:02.400 history shaped her consciousness. And then her job as an 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.280 editor at Random House gave her an opportunity to be 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.640 on both sides of the publishing world, you know what 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.800 I mean. So she was helping other people come into 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.240 the spotlight as writers. Claude Brown, for example, she helped 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.600 publish the autobiography of Angela Davis. And I think sitting 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.760 at the table as an editor also developed her own 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.960 ear for writing and for language. And her editor even 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:30.840 said at one point he had to say to her, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.360 you need to go ahead and be a writer. And 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.800 it took her a while before she claimed it, you know. 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.280 So I think that's a gender issue that he knew 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.080 she was writing, but she wasn't quite ready to call 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.400 herself a writer. I think a little bit of timidity 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:48.960 may have been part of it early on, but after 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:57.520 a while she just fully embraced it. Senecas one hundred 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.120 women to hear will be back after the short break. 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:14.480 Were there particular challenges that she had to overcome, Well, 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.840 I think I've mentioned a couple of them already. She 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.920 had to balance being a single parent, which I think 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.440 is important because sometimes people don't think of famous people 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.440 having some of the same challenges that other people have. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.080 So she had a period when she needed her family 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.840 back in Lorraine to help her with with her parenting. 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:41.440 She had to deal with the challenges of manuscripts being 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.680 rejected at first, even though they had some acclaim, they 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:49.880 didn't have the acclaim of her third novel, Song of Solomon. 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.360 Those first two novels didn't, and so there was just 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.960 the reality of sometimes you're going to be rejected. Sometimes 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.760 you're gonna realize you're in a male, downnated rural and 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.280 expected to write a certain way, and that's not the 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.200 way you're going to write. And I think she had 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.000 some challenges around that, but after a while some of 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.480 that began to drop away. As I said, she later 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.320 began to embrace herself as a writer and knew that 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:21.600 that's what she wanted to do, and the editing was 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.240 was less attractive once the writing life really took full 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:30.600 force in her. Now you knew her personally, um tell 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.440 us what she was like as a person. And I 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:36.880 also know that you're the founder and former head of 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.440 the Tony Morrison Society, and perhaps you can tell us 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.320 about that as well. Well. I'd like to clarify that 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.000 I'm one of the founders. The actual founder of the 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:52.480 Tony Morrison Society is Dr Caroline Dennard, who at that 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.400 time was a Georgia State if I'm not mistaken, Georgia 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.760 State University, and we met at the car Prince for 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:05.280 American Literature, the American Literature Association, and at that conference 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:10.919 in this was May of Dr Denard came to me 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:12.880 and she said I was the first person she wanted 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.800 to tell about this idea. She said, I think it's 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.439 time for Tony Morrison to have a society named after her, 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.280 and she would be one of the few living writers 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.679 most of the society's or after writers who are no 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.359 longer living, like Zora Nel Hurston and f Scott Fitzgerald 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:31.280 and so on. And I agreed with her that it 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.720 was time, and we formed the Tony Morrison Society. I 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.880 think at that time there were about nineteen scholars at 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.320 the conference who said yes, they agreed that it was time, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.600 and we signed on and we just began working after 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.240 that to post conferences. That was a conference where she 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.920 went with us and went down to Cartersville to her 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.160 father's home, and we began hosting conferences, and she came 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.760 to every single one, including the one we had in Pair, 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.000 and if I'm not mistaken, there have been eight altogether. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.600 I'm no longer on the board. I'm still a member, 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.879 but I'm not on the board in any event. The 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.920 last one was before she died, which was Tony Morrison 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.760 and her life as an editor. But we had each 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.920 of those biennial conferences scheduled so that she could be present, 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:26.119 and she was there, and it's at those conferences that 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:27.760 we had a chance to get to know her a 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.760 little bit better. And so we've had a chance to 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:34.719 be with her strictly as a writer and as scholars 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.720 we would at our conferences, we would always give out 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.440 a book award. We'd have keynote speakers who were fellow scholars, 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.200 literary scholars, scholars in the field of African American studies, 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.000 and we got to see that side of her, of course, 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.200 the writer, the scholar, the public intellectual. We always got 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.000 to see that. But when we had these conferences, we 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.080 also had downtime with her, and so it was also 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.240 rewarding at that downtime and when we went to her 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.639 home just a top almost as sister friends, you know 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.360 what I mean, of course, and there was something very 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:12.240 nice about talking to her and knowing that, like me, 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.360 I'm also a mother of two sons. We had these 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.560 conversations about what is it like to raise black male children, 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.440 and even back in the eighties, I recall we had 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.560 a conversation, but maybe it was the nineties. We had 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.280 a conversation about what we call the talk that black 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.520 women have with their sons, or that black parents have 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.400 with their sons. And Toni Morrison said she made both 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.879 of her sons put a Fraternal Order Police sticker on 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.640 the back of their cars, and I remember thinking, this 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.200 is this is so important. It felt heavy on one hand, 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:50.000 and yet it brought in her humanity in a way 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.280 I hadn't thought of it. I hadn't thought of, well, 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.919 like other black women, she has to help her sons 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.480 navigate what America is like racially. I hadn't thought about that. 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:01.919 And as soon as she said, I thought, I'm going 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.359 to tell my sons to put a Paternal Order police 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.320 sticker on back of their cars, and so on one end. 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.760 I heard it in a kind of facetious way, and 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.840 yet it was very, very serious, and it said that 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.600 like other black women, regardless of our status or our 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.200 income or education, we had to think about those things. 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.920 And then there was just fun. She was just fun 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.600 to be around. She always had a little something snarkly 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:32.119 to say, and we would look at one another and 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.320 we would go, WHOA. But I just liked it. You know. 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.840 She wasn't She didn't have herself on a pedestal. And 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.600 I can't imagine what it was like to be her 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.640 student at Princeton. I can't imagine that I would get 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.600 any work done for being in awe of her. But 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.679 she was a teacher, and she often talked about how 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.040 she taught and what she wanted her students to accomplish. 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.719 So I just think if we only know her as 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.280 a writer, we're missing out. But if we lean or 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.560 as a writer, that's the most important thing to know. 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:07.879 Because she tried to capture her own humanity without being autobiographical. 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.600 I think that's important. Sometimes people immediately want to know, well, 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.720 did that happen to her? Did this happen to her? No, 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:19.800 But she was a keen observer and a keen listener. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.560 What a privileged time you had with her. You talked 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.800 about her just now about being a teacher, and you 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.200 are a teacher as well in terms of your professorship. 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:36.200 And you assigned the Nobel lecture that she gave when 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.560 she received the Nobel Prize. You assigned that to your students. 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.359 What is it about the lecture that you want them 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.960 to know? Thank you for asking that question. It is 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.280 known at my university that I taught every single class 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:51.679 with that lecture. I don't care what the topic of 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.040 the class was. I began every course once I had 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:59.160 the lecture, once I had the recording with it, because 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.959 I love the way it gave students an appreciation for 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:07.000 the power of language and the power of narrative. To 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:11.119 tell difficult truths. And I love the way she took 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:15.640 a global stage moment. She was at a moment when 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.280 she could have talked about anything, and in that lecture 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.359 she actually talks about many of the issues that I teach. 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:25.640 Talks about what it's like to have an encounter with 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.520 someone who is different from you. The young men and 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.480 that narrative have an encounter with an older I say 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.600 young men. They were young people. I don't know what 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:36.919 their gender now I think about it, but they had 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:42.600 an encounter with an old, blind black woman. And it 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:46.280 starts as a kind of standoff, a kind of narrative standoff, 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.639 and by the end of that novel, they have come together. 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.080 They've become uh almost friends, but they at least have 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.760 a sense of appreciation for the other. And the way 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.840 she uses that noble lecture to age that and to 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.960 load it. It's a lecture that's loaded up with ideas 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:11.560 about how we other, how we marginalize, how racism acts, 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:16.240 how sexism acts, how fascism acts. She gets so much 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.120 of the political and cultural reality of our lived lives 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:24.600 in that short narrative called the Nobile Lecture, that I 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:27.880 want my students to hear it because she says at 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:32.080 one point in that lecture, language can only art towards 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:35.959 the place where meaning may lie. And that tells you 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:38.239 the power of language right there. It says you're not 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.280 always going to get it right, but it also says 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:45.919 that language can be for good or for evil, And 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.800 in that moment, in that lecture, she takes you all 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:53.240 those places, and it ends on a note of hope 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.640 for what can happen when you stop marginalizing the other, 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:01.600 when you stop seeing the person totally as only different 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:05.679 from you but not connected to your humanity. That novel 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:08.640 ends on a note of hope for what language can 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:13.560 do to connect, to create community, to create a sense 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:17.520 of belonging. So they start as a standoff, but they 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:21.640 end finally realizing that the The lecture ends with, look 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:25.280 at this thing we have done together, And I just 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:28.840 think that is so beautiful, It's so delicious. My students 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:31.280 used to look at me, I'm sure, and wonder what 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:34.399 in the world is happening to her? But I just 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:38.080 needed them to know that that whole lecture shows the 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:41.760 power of language. People can start at a standoff, they 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:46.320 can start as antagonists, but if they surrender to language, 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:49.720 and if they surrender to the power of the imagination, 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:54.119 and they surrender to the ability to see one another 0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:59.959 as community and interconnected and belonging, then there's a way 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:03.400 that language can help us. Well. I feel like I'm 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:06.719 a student in your class listening to the fabulous lecture 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:11.520 you just gave about Tony Morrison's Nobel lecture. What a wonderful, 0:25:11.560 --> 0:25:16.040 wonderful lesson. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Now, if 0:25:16.080 --> 0:25:20.720 you could read just one of her books again, what 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:26.119 would it be? And why, Oh my goodness, She's written 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.520