Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination

A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Ed. by A Yemisi Jimoh, University of Massachusetts Amherst
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.5: African American Writing and Culture of the United States.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Philathia Bolton (University of Akron), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), A Yemisi Jimoh (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University)

Domains

Race

Dates

First circulation or publication 1992

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Commentary / Criticism (literary)

Resources

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In 1990 Toni Morrison delivered the William E. Massey Lectures in the History of American Civilization. The lecture series was revised and published in May 1992 as a slim volume titled Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. The three essays are metacritical explorations into the operations of whiteness and blackness in the literature of white writers in the United States. Toni Morrison takes the position that the existing literary criticism in the United States has provided incomplete readings of its canonical literature and, further, has concealed the politics informing the practice of critical literary and cultural analysis itself. She points especially to the politics of the universal, which, as she presents it inPlaying in the Dark, can easily be described as

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1368 words

Citation: Jimoh, A Yemisi. "Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 July 2004; last revised 20 March 2012. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2769, accessed 21 November 2024.]