Toni Morrison and the Natural World: An Ecology of Color

by Anissa Janine Wardi

Overview

The first ecocritical treatment of the entire range of the Nobel Laureate's mighty works

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496834164
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	06/28/2021
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Anissa Janine Wardi is professor of English and African American literature at Chatham University. She is author of Water and African American Memory: An Ecocritical Perspective and Death and the Arc of Mourning in African American Literature, and her work has appeared in African American Review, Callaloo, ISLE, and MELUS

Editorial Reviews

07/05/2021

English and African American literature professor Wardi (Water and African American Memory) considers the work of Toni Morrison and its association with nature in this scholarly work of criticism. Four chapters are arranged thematically by color: “Brown” parses Morrison’s novels Paradise and The Bluest Eye using the color “of soil, compost, and rot.” Green, “the preeminent color of ecological thought, environmental discourse, and conservation movements,” brings together Beloved, Home, and Song of Solomon, while “Orange” looks at how Morrison “explores our human relationship to fire and the ecological benefits of fire” in God Help the Child and Sula. Blue is associated with “water’s indelible relationships to life-forms on our planet” in Ward’s reading of Tar Baby and Love, and in her concluding chapter, she studies A Mercy and Jazz to find that Morrison reveals “an ecosystem where people and nature encounter each other, where the origin story of the nation meets American environmentalism.” While Ward’s take is philosophical, academic, and highly specialized, her theoretical musings are mixed with grounding synopses of the texts. Though not for the lay reader, this thought-provoking analysis will appeal to students and scholars of Morrison’s work. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Conceptually dense but engaging in its readability, Toni Morrison and the Natural World may be especially useful to educators (from any discipline) who want to incorporate more ecocritical content into the classroom. This book will also be useful to scholars interested in learning more about the capaciousness of Black environmental literature.--Ashia Ajani "Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment"

By linking the ecology of colors in the natural environment with the work of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison's fiction, Wardi traces a direct line between racism and ecocide. The introduction, 'All Them Colors Was in Me, ' links embodiment with material ecocriticsm and Morrisons vision of sustainability and color theory with bodies of color. THe chapters that follow focus on a particular color and the corresponding fiction. For example, brown, the color of skin, dirt, and compost, is used to explain meaning in Paradise and The Bluest Eye. Green, the color of life and healing, applies to Beloved, Home and Song of Solomon. 'Blue, the color associated with islands, swamps, water, and other ecotones' applies to Tar Baby and Love. This fascinating, insightful study concludes with the 'colors' of black and white, the epitome of no color and all color and the historical foundation of racial prejudice signified in A Mercy and Jazz. --L. L. Johnson, emerita, Lewis & Clark College. "CHOICE"

Anissa Janine Wardi takes Morrison research in an entirely new direction. Her discussion of Morrison's use of the natural world is seamlessly grounded in scientific knowledge so that the reader comes away with a much more complex understanding of the essential connection of the human world to its environment than is typical. Toni Morrison and the Natural World: An Ecology of Color is a tremendously sophisticated text, resisting a narrow comprehension of what literary criticism is.--Shirley A. Stave, coeditor of New Critical Essays on Toni Morrison's "God Help the Child" Race, Culture, and History

From the Publisher