By Laura Donnelly-Smith
Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison will visit GW on Sept. 21 and will read from her work and answer audience questions during “An Evening with Toni Morrison,” scheduled for 8 p.m in Lisner Auditorium.
Ms. Morrison is the author of nine major novels, including Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988, The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon. Her most recent novel is A Mercy, published in 2008. In 1993, Ms. Morrison became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
“I could not be more pleased with the timing of Toni Morrison's visit to our campus,” said Terri Harris Reed, vice provost for diversity and inclusion. “As part of our diversity and inclusion efforts, we are encouraging enhancements to our curricular and research endeavors that better facilitate rigorous critical analysis of cultural, ethnic, racial and other related differences, and better prepare our students for national and global citizenship. Professor Morrison's insight and wisdom reflect why diversity should be central, not peripheral, to our academic objectives.”
Evelyn Schreiber, an associate professor of English, was instrumental in bringing Ms. Morrison to GW. In addition to teaching an English course that explores the similar themes in Ms. Morrison’s and William Faulkner’s works, Dr. Schreiber serves as vice president of the Toni Morrison Society, a group of scholars who write, discuss and publish academic papers on Ms. Morrison’s work. The nonprofit group also sponsors academic programs, including the Language Matters Teaching Initiative, which provides professional development activities to secondary school language teachers.
“For a world-renowned author, Toni Morrison is very accessible to students,” Dr. Schreiber said. “She listens to what they have to say and knows that the future is in their hands. It’s an unusual opportunity for students to be able to interact with a writer of her caliber.”
“An Evening with Toni Morrison” will feature Ms. Morrison speaking about her life and work, as well as reading from A Mercy and from a forthcoming, yet-unpublished novel. The evening will also include time for questions from audience members. GW community members may request free tickets at http://morrison-at-gw.eventbrite.com.
The Toni Morrison Society and GW will also place and dedicate a bench outside of Lisner Auditorium commemorating the racial integration of the auditorium in 1947. The GW Board of Trustees voted that year to no longer impose restrictions on attendance at events at the auditorium. The bench is part of the Bench by the Road Project, an initiative of the Toni Morrison Society that grew out of a quote Ms. Morrison gave in an interview in 1989. She commented that while there are memorials to many historical events and periods, there is no monument or memorial to commemorate slavery.
“There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves,” she said, according to the Toni Morrison Society website. “There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no small bench by the road.”
The Bench by the Road Project places benches in public places to serve as points of introspection for visitors to think about slavery and its legacy. Dr. Schreiber and her husband, Scott, are sponsoring GW’s bench, which will include a plaque explaining the bench’s relevance.
GW’s bench will be the sixth placed worldwide. The first bench was placed in 2008 in Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, the point where more than 40 percent of enslaved Africans were brought into North America.
GW senior and history major Julie Nganele has studied Ms. Morrison’s work with Dr. Schreiber.
“It’s important for GW as well as Foggy Bottom to celebrate its rich diversity,” Ms. Nganele said. “Foggy Bottom was originally a black area of DC, and the university has played a notable role throughout its history in the integration of this community. The fact that GW is a place where students are lucky enough to be exposed to such notable academic figures is really amazing.”
Dr. Schreiber said Ms. Morrison’s visit provides a good opportunity for GW community members to learn more about Foggy Bottom’s history, as well as the history of African-Americans in D.C. as a whole.
“It’s a chance to look at cultural development,” she said. “It’s a good educational experience to explore how cities and communities develop and change.” Dr. Harris Reed suggested that faculty members in many disciplines may be able to connect Ms. Morrison’s work to their own classes, by exploring some of the universal themes her writing covers: the persistence of the past in the present, creating an identity, stereotyping and “otherness.”
Ms. Nganele, who said she has been fascinated by Ms. Morrison’s writing since she was 12, hopes she might get a chance to ask the author one question.
“If I could ask her anything, it would be [whether] she had one defining moment in her life that set her on the course to becoming the writer and teacher she became,” Ms. Nganele said. “I consider Morrison one of my literary heroes, and to be able to start off my senior year with this event is something I am truly thankful for.”
UPDATE: As of Sept. 13, this event has reached capacity. However, there will be a standby list the evening of the event. Visit http://morrison-at-gw.eventbrite.com and click "sign up for waitlist" to receive information about standby status.
To reserve free tickets for "An Evening with Toni Morrison," held Wednesday, Sept. 21, from 8 to 9 p.m. in Lisner Auditorium, visit http://morrison-at-gw.eventbrite.com. Other events related to Ms. Morrison’s visit, including a black history walking tour of Foggy Bottom and a film and discussion at the Multicultural Student Services Center, will be listed at www.gwu.edu/diversity.