The late Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison has left a body of work that delights, educates, inspires, and, at times, disconcerts the careful reader. Song of Solomon (1977), her third novel, is considered one of her finest. Both a family saga of the Dead family—their odd surname the result of the carelessness of an intoxicated Freedmen’s Bureau agent during Reconstruction—and a coming-of-age novel that begins with the 1931 birth of the novel’s protagonist, Song of Solomon is replete with unforgettable characters, historical analogues, and moral questions that are still relevant today. Guided by the instructor, each week class members will examine 60 pages of the text, looking closely at the ideas present and the way Morrison stylistically conveys them. Morrison’s belief that literature is a collaboration between writer and reader is the bedrock of this discussion-based class.

Required Reading:  Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

Registration deadline: March 9