As part of the Senior and Postdoctoral Fellowship Lectures series, Carolyn Denard, Toni Morrison Senior Fellow in African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, and founder and board chair of the Toni Morrison Society, will present a lecture based on her book Lines of Influence: Africa, Toni Morrison, and the African Diaspora on Thursday, December 9, 2025, from 12:30 to 2:30 PM in The Africa Institute Auditorium (location map).
This seminar explores the ways in which Toni Morrison, as an African American woman writer with ancestral ties but no natal connection to Africa, was able, like many African Americans, to find connections to Africa in the cultural remnants that survived the Middle Passage. Morrison gleaned these survivals from stories and myths told to her by her family; from her memory of the everyday cadence and imagery of the language of Black people; from community values and expectations; from nearly forgotten African symbols, names, and phrases; and from her observations of the revered place of ancestors in African American community life.
Morrison also found such connections in the works of African writers such as Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, and Wole Soyinka; in conversations with philosophers such as John Mbiti; and through her own research. It is these cultural remnants, these remembered and told-to stories, symbols, myths, and rhythms of Africa that, as critic La Vina Jennings points out, became “the decisive criteria for the identifiable qualities of Blackness that her novels of African American life stylistically exemplify” (Jennings, The Idea of Africa, 2008). These elements also became the basis for the new identity and cultural formations that African Americans created for themselves in the United States.
“Out of thrown things,” Morrison explains, “they invented everything: a music that is the world’s music, a style, a manner of speaking, a relationship with each other, and more importantly psychological ways to deal with it” (“Blacks, Modernism, and the American South: An Interview,” Studies in the Literary Imagination, 1998). Morrison’s knowledge of how these African cultural elements became a part of African American life, and her desire to bear witness to their influence, shaped her artistry and her political goals as a writer: “I think long and carefully about what my novels ought to do. They should clarify the roles that have become obscured, they ought to identify those things in the past that were useful and those that were not, and they ought to give nourishment. I like to dust off the language, dust off the myths and look closely to see what they might conceal” (“The Language Must Not Sweat: An Interview,” in Conversations with Toni Morrison, 1994).
This lecture affirms Morrison’s role as a cultural conduit, and through a close reading of her use of myths in two of her novels, Song of Solomon (1977) and Tar Baby (1981), it will show how Morrison illuminates the meaning behind these myths and how that meaning provides important cultural commentary on the roles and aspirations of African American men and women during slavery and segregation in the United States. Using the scholarly research of Rocío Cobo-Piñero, Ashleigh Harris, and Stelamaris Coser, the lecture will conclude by showing how Morrison’s cultural and political project, which draws heavily on her use of African survivals and her articulation of the physical and psychological costs of slavery and colonialism, is influencing the works of a new generation of writers, artists, and musicians from Africa and the African Diaspora.
Carolyn Denard, founder and board chair of the Toni Morrison Society, joins The Africa Institute as the 2025 Toni Morrison Senior Fellow in African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies. A scholar, educator, and longtime steward of Morrison’s literary legacy, Denard has spent decades advancing the study and public understanding of African American literature, with a particular focus on Morrison’s work. Read more.
Philathia Bolton serves as Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute and was the inaugural Toni Morrison Senior Fellow (2023–2024). Her work examines African American literature, Black feminist theory, and the cultural and political legacies of the civil rights movement. Read more.
As part of the Senior and Postdoctoral Fellowship Lectures series, Carolyn Denard, Toni Morrison Senior Fellow in African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, and founder and board chair of the Toni Morrison Society, will present a lecture based on her book Lines of Influence: Africa, Toni Morrison, and the African Diaspora on Thursday, December 9, 2025, from 12:30 to 2:30 PM in The Africa Institute Auditorium (location map).
As part of the Senior and Postdoctoral Fellowship Lectures series, Carolyn Denard, Toni Morrison Senior Fellow in African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute, Global Studies University, and founder and board chair of the Toni Morrison Society, will present a lecture based on her book Lines of Influence: Africa, Toni Morrison, and the African Diaspora on Thursday, December 9, 2025, from 12:30 to 2:30 PM in The Africa Institute Auditorium (location map).
This seminar explores the ways in which Toni Morrison, as an African American woman writer with ancestral ties but no natal connection to Africa, was able, like many African Americans, to find connections to Africa in the cultural remnants that survived the Middle Passage. Morrison gleaned these survivals from stories and myths told to her by her family; from her memory of the everyday cadence and imagery of the language of Black people; from community values and expectations; from nearly forgotten African symbols, names, and phrases; and from her observations of the revered place of ancestors in African American community life.
Morrison also found such connections in the works of African writers such as Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, and Wole Soyinka; in conversations with philosophers such as John Mbiti; and through her own research. It is these cultural remnants, these remembered and told-to stories, symbols, myths, and rhythms of Africa that, as critic La Vina Jennings points out, became “the decisive criteria for the identifiable qualities of Blackness that her novels of African American life stylistically exemplify” (Jennings, The Idea of Africa, 2008). These elements also became the basis for the new identity and cultural formations that African Americans created for themselves in the United States.
“Out of thrown things,” Morrison explains, “they invented everything: a music that is the world’s music, a style, a manner of speaking, a relationship with each other, and more importantly psychological ways to deal with it” (“Blacks, Modernism, and the American South: An Interview,” Studies in the Literary Imagination, 1998). Morrison’s knowledge of how these African cultural elements became a part of African American life, and her desire to bear witness to their influence, shaped her artistry and her political goals as a writer: “I think long and carefully about what my novels ought to do. They should clarify the roles that have become obscured, they ought to identify those things in the past that were useful and those that were not, and they ought to give nourishment. I like to dust off the language, dust off the myths and look closely to see what they might conceal” (“The Language Must Not Sweat: An Interview,” in Conversations with Toni Morrison, 1994).
This lecture affirms Morrison’s role as a cultural conduit, and through a close reading of her use of myths in two of her novels, Song of Solomon (1977) and Tar Baby (1981), it will show how Morrison illuminates the meaning behind these myths and how that meaning provides important cultural commentary on the roles and aspirations of African American men and women during slavery and segregation in the United States. Using the scholarly research of Rocío Cobo-Piñero, Ashleigh Harris, and Stelamaris Coser, the lecture will conclude by showing how Morrison’s cultural and political project, which draws heavily on her use of African survivals and her articulation of the physical and psychological costs of slavery and colonialism, is influencing the works of a new generation of writers, artists, and musicians from Africa and the African Diaspora.
Carolyn Denard, founder and board chair of the Toni Morrison Society, joins The Africa Institute as the 2025 Toni Morrison Senior Fellow in African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies. A scholar, educator, and longtime steward of Morrison’s literary legacy, Denard has spent decades advancing the study and public understanding of African American literature, with a particular focus on Morrison’s work. Read more.
Philathia Bolton serves as Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Literature and Cultural Studies at The Africa Institute and was the inaugural Toni Morrison Senior Fellow (2023–2024). Her work examines African American literature, Black feminist theory, and the cultural and political legacies of the civil rights movement. Read more.
Subscribe to our mailing list and get the latest news from The Africa Institute
