Toni Morrison: A Teaching and Learning Resource Collection

Overviews of Toni Morrison's Nonfiction and Drama

(Under construction, Fall 2021)

In addition to publishing eleven works of fiction and authoring two plays as well as the libretto to Margaret Garner, Morrison was a prolific public intellectual, who published several books of criticism. She also served as editor for a number of timely collections during the 1990s and 2000s. 

Morrison's most influential nonfiction book might be Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (2007). But two other collections of her essays are also highly recommended, Toni Morrison: What Moves at the Margin. Selected Nonfiction (2008), and The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations (2019). 

Two particularly important collections Morrison edited include Race-ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Social Construction of Reality (1992), and Burn this Book: PEN Writers Speak out on the Power of the Word (2009). We have overviews of the essays Morrison wrote for those collections included below. 



 

This page has paths:

  1. Welcome Amardeep Singh

Contents of this path:

  1. Toni Morrison's "Playing in the Dark" (1992): Overview and Summary
  2. "Desdemona" (2011): Overview
  3. "Margaret Garner" (2005): Overview and Links
  4. Morrison's "Friday on the Potomac" (1992. From 'Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power'): Overview
  5. Morrison's "Peril" (2009): Overview