The Toni Morrison Society is pleased to announce its Sixth Biennial Conference, Toni Morrison and Circuits of the Imagination. The Sixth Biennial will be held this year in Paris, a geographic move that marks the first Biennial held outside the U.S. The overarching goal of the conference is to promote a broad exchange of ideas among the larger international community of Morrison scholars -including translators, artists, publishers, teachers, students, and lay readers. The choice of Paris and St. Denis as the conference sites-because of their historical and cultural significance for people of the African Diaspora and the history of Paris as an expatriate destination for artists and intellectuals-encourages an examination of the reception, translations, and transformations that Morrison's work inspires within and across borders. The city also served as a site of artistic departure for Morrison as well when she visited Paris in the 1960s before returning to the United States to embark on her publishing and writing career. The city and the surrounding region, which Morrison has called "le chez soi de l'etranger" (the stranger's home) serves as a point of departure for exploring the deeper meaning of circuits of the imagination/les circuits de l'imaginaire-those dynamic itineraries, movements, and agencies-that ignite Morrison's imagination and that her work engenders.
Highlights of the conference will include an On-Stage Conversation about the Conference theme with Toni Morrison and Janis Mayes, professor of African Diaspora and Francophone literatures at Syracuse University on the conference theme, keynote lectures by acclaimed Morrison scholars from the U.S. and Europe, scholarly presentations by Morrison scholars from around the world, a Jazz Performance, the announcement of the recipients of the 2010 Toni Morrison Society Book Prize, a Language Matters Secondary Teachers Workshop, a City Tour that focuses on sites important in the African Diaspora, and the Placement of the First International "Bench by the Road." Conference events will take place at the Université Paris 8, the Citadines Hotel St. Germain, and at other cultural centers throughout Paris.
The Sixth Biennial Conference, expected to include over 400 participants from throughout the world, will be an extraordinary opportunity to explore, once again, in new and exciting ways in this international setting, the imagination and the impact of the works of American Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. For more information about the Conference, e-mail the Conference Directors at paris.tms@gmail.com.
Conference Co-Chairs, Professors: Janis A. Mayes, Syracuse University; Andrée-Anne Kekeh, Université Paris 8; Maryemma Graham, University of Kansas; Anne Wicke, Université de Rouen
Please click here to register for the Conference