AWS 3140 Toni Morrison and Africanist Persona

This course is a detailed study of Toni Morrison’s art and the African and African-American traditions out of which she writes. The class examines the mythic structures of African/ethnic memory that govern form and theme in Morrison’s work in terms of aesthetic theories located in black expressive cultures such as music, myth, oral history, slave narrative, and family history. Special attention is placed on what Morrison calls “the Africanist Persona,” the conscious and unconscious African retentions, Kongo, Yoruba and Angolan memory and knowledge systems embedded in selected novels.
Credits: 3.0