Toni Morrison Society Celebrates 20 Years

In March 2012, the Toni Morrison Society moved its headquarters to the campus of Oberlin College. This weekend, the international literary society will celebrate its 20th anniversary in Oberlin.

Among the events open to the public are the inaugural Toni Morrison Society Lecture—A Conversation to Have at Home: [Dis}placing Repectability’s Visual Politics in Jazz—which will be delivered by Herman Beavers at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 19, in Finney Chapel. A 1981 graduate of Oberlin, Beavers teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has a joint appointment in the Africana studies department and teaches courses in African American and American literature, including courses on Southern modernism, 20th -century African American poetry, as well as  the course Trading Fours: The Literatures of Jazz, which is a requisite in the jazz and popular music minor. He also teaches a section of the introductory poetry workshop in the university’s creative writing program. His most recent poems have appeared in MELUS, The Langston Hughes Colloquy, and Versadelphia.  He has recently published essays on  August Wilson, Charles Johnson, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison.  

The following evening, Toni Morrison will give a special convocation talk at 8 p.m. in Finney Chapel. Although it is free, the Nobel Prize winner’s talk is a ticketed event. A few tickets remain for faculty, staff, and students and can be obtained at Central Ticket Service by presenting an ObieID. Overflow seating, which is free and does not require a ticket, will be available in the Science Center's West Lecture Hall, where the convocation will be broadcast live.