Award-winning author and Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large Toni Morrison ’55 MA returns to campus at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the David L. Call Auditorium of Kennedy Hall to present a free lecture.
Tickets are available at the Willard Straight Hall ticket desk starting at 9 a.m. There is a limit of two tickets per person.
“In some ways she’s at home here in this community,” said Hortense J. Spillers, the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English, noting that Morrison received her master’s degree at Cornell.
During her five-day visit beginning Monday, Morrison will participate in panel discussions, seminars and forums with faculty, students, staff and alumni.
Ph.D. candidates and graduate students will also hold a panel discussion with Morrison that is sponsored by the English department. Spillers will moderate the event, taking place at 10 a.m. Thursday in the Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall.
The Robert F. Goheen Professor of Humanities at Princeton University, Morrison was the first African-American woman to hold an endowed chair at an Ivy League University. Prior to joining Princeton, Morrison was the senior editor at Random House, Inc. for 20 years.
In 1993, she won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, Beloved.
Her other novels include The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, Jazz and Paradise.
Morrison was appointed as an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large in 1997 and is tenured through 2003. She last visited Cornell in 1998.
Heralded by readers at Cornell for her contributions in literature, Morrison’s appearance is projected to generate the interest of the campus community.
“I’m sure this time will be as exciting as the last,” Spillers said.
Archived article by Heather Schroeder