Biennial Conference Series

Beginning in 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia, the Biennial Conference Series was established to provide interdisciplinary study of Morrison's work at geographic locations that have meaning in her life and works and that enhance our understanding of her fiction. The First Biennial, Toni Morrison and the American South, was held in Atlanta, the then home of the Toni Morrison Society, and in Cartersville, Georgia, the birthplace of Morrison's father. In 2000, the Second Biennial Conference, Toni Morrison and the Meanings of Home, was held in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison's hometown. In 2003, the Third Biennial, Toni Morrison and the Politics of Learning, was held in Washington, DC, the home of Howard University where she attended undergraduate school. In 2005, the Fourth Biennial, Toni Morrison and Sites of Memory, was held in Cincinnati, Ohio and featured the Cincinnati Premier of the opera Margaret Garner, and a tour of the plantation in Maplewood, Kentucky where Margaret Garner, whose life story inspired Beloved, was a slave. In 2008, the Fifth Biennial Conference, Toni Morrison and Modernism, was held in Charleston South Carolina. A featured event of the Fifth Biennial was placing the first bench of the Bench by the Road Project on Sullivan's Island off the coast of South Carolina, which was a major port of entry for enslaved Africans in North America. Conference attendees traveled by boat to Sullivan's Island to witness this historic event. The Sixth Biennial Conference, "Toni Morrison and Circuits of the Imagination" was held in Paris, France in 2010. The Biennial Conferences are interdisciplinary events that include distinguished scholars, visual artists, and musicians. They also include educational tours for conference attendees of the sites in the conference city that have meaning in Morrison's novels. The Biennial Conference attracts Morrison scholars from around the world, locals in the community, and their families and has become the premier way to experience, in the broadest sense, the meanings of Morrison's novels.

Donate to Annual Fund