Books and Literature

In Jezebel Unhinged: Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture, black feminist scholar of religion Tamura Lomax contends with and deconstructs deeply racialized, gendered, and sexualized cultural pathologies about Black women and girls. Lomax builds on the work of Black feminists and womanists, including but not limited to bell hooks, Hortense Spillers, Kelly Brown Douglass, and Emilie Townes, though Lomax does so with expressed attention to the sexual politics inside of “the Black church” among Black churchgoing people (4-5).

Morrison came to Princeton in 1989 to teach literature and creative writing. During her 17 years of teaching, she played a key role in expanding the University’s commitments to the creative and performing arts and to African American studies. In 1994, she founded the Princeton Atelier, which brings together undergraduate students in interdisciplinary collaborations with acclaimed artists. In 2016, Princeton University Library announced that the the major portion of the Toni Morrison Papers, which had been part of the permanent library collections since 2014, were open for research to students, faculty and scholars worldwide. (One item from the Morrison Papers, a handwritten manuscript draft of “Beloved,” is on view through June 23 in the exhibition “Welcome Additions: Selected Acquisitions 2012-18” in Firestone Library’s Milberg Gallery.) In 2017, the University dedicated the naming of Morrison Hall, formerly West College, in her honor.