News
Notable Female Alumnae Recognized During Women’s History Month
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Female alumni Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Toni Morrison and Barbara McClintock are recognized in honor of Women’s History Month.
Featured in Category
U.S. Postal Service commemorates Toni Morrison, Ruth Bader Ginsburg through 2023 postal stamps
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The United States Postal Service will honor trailblazing Cornell alumnae Toni Morrison M.A. ’55 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 through new postage stamps set to be issued in 2023. Morrison and Ginsburg’s stamps were revealed on October 24, alongside the Postal Service’s preliminary list of new designs. The stamps celebrate two of Cornell’s most prominent graduates. As Forever stamps, these commemorative works will always represent the existing price of one ounce First-Class Mail postage.
A Pulitzer Prize-winner and the first African American Nobel Prize-winner for literature, Morrison was an accomplished author best known for her works like The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon and Beloved.
“Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison was truly a genius and among the preeminent authors of world literature who helped to theorize and revolutionize American literature, while consistently reflecting on its history and culture in her vast body of writing,” Prof. Riché Richardson, africana studies, wrote in an email to the Sun.
Morrison’s stamp, designed by USPS art director Ethel Kessler, features a photograph of Morrison taken in 2000 by Deborah Feingold.
Alyiah Marie Gonzales grad did not know about Morrison’s new stamp but is excited to add a meaningful touch to her letters. “Toni Morrison both exploded my world and shined a brilliant light on all of the different worlds I’ve been living in,” Gonzales wrote in an email to the Sun.
Columns
MEHLER | Happy Birthday Toni Morrison
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None of us had put together that we happened to visit Morrison Dining on Toni Morrison’s birthday, but it led us down a conversation of the names on buildings and how they came to be there. There has been plenty of discussion around how buildings are named, and even more articles about their origins, but the most important conclusion we landed on was that the names of buildings matter. While nowhere close to a nuclear physicist myself, I know more about Hans Bethe than I do about any other scientist after living in his namesake dorm for the past two years. ILR’s founding dean Irving Ives, Human Ecology’s founder Martha Van Rensselaer, and other notable Cornellians continue their legacies through building names across campus.
Arts & Culture
Freshman Housing Histories and Legacies
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Cornell freshmen are all too familiar with these scenes: leaving their cozy rooms on Saturday night and tumbling back into soft beds (very) early Sunday morning, or throwing their backpacks next to their half-spilling closets before tiredly climbing up into the top bunk. Freshmen dorms represent more than just a shelter for many students, which is why I think it’s important for us to learn about the legacy and history that surround North Campus.
Arts & Culture
Curating a Summer Reading List
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If you, like me, are looking forward to some reading this summer, let’s embark on this ill-fated journey together. Will we achieve our reading goals? Almost certainly not. Will we still enjoy the act of resistance that is leisure in a society that values only productivity? We must — or perish.
Cornell University
Morrison M.A. ’55 Nominated to Women’s Hall of Fame
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Toni Morrison MA ’55 has been nominated for the 2020 class of the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She graduated from Cornell’s grad school in 1955.
Arts & Culture
Behind Cornell’s Celebration of ‘The Bluest Eye’
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On Thursday, Cornell held a virtual day-long reading of The Bluest Eye to celebrate the amazing career of author Toni Morrison M.A. ʼ55 and the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication. This event was the beginning of a year-long celebration of Toni Morrison as part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Arts Unplugged Series. Morrison, one of Cornell’s most notable alumni, published The Bluest Eye, her first novel, in 1970. While the pandemic delayed this event from its original planned date last spring, there are some benefits to the virtual format. “The advantage of doing it remotely is that thousands of people everywhere can hear it, can see it,” said Professor Anne Adams, Africana Studies. “There’s more of a consistency to the experience of watching it than there would have been if we were going between live readers and readers being brought in remotely,” added Professor Roger Gilbert, English.
north campus residential expansion
Cornell to Name New Dorms After Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54, Toni Morrison M.A. ’55
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Two of Cornell’s new North Campus dorms will be named in honor of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 and Toni Morrison M.A. ’55, President Martha E. Pollack announced Friday morning.
BIPOC/Related
Cornell Commemorates Toni Morrison M.A. ’55 Through Live Reading of ‘The Bluest Eye’
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To commemorate the publication of Toni Morrison’s M.A. ’55 The Bluest Eye, Cornell students, professors and guests gathered virtually to read excerpts of the famous novel.
toni morrison
Peers, Students of Toni Morrison M.A. ’55 Reflect on Her Legacy
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Morrison was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She is renowned as a prolific fiction writer, literary critic and theorist. Her most famous works include Pulitzer Prize winning Beloved, The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon.