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Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
Toni Morrison
Education
Morrison examines how race and assumptions about whiteness shape American literary imagination, including meanings left unspoken.
Information Summary:
Morrison's literary criticism examines how constructions of race, including assumptions about whiteness, shape American literary traditions and interpretations. It invites close reading informed by historical context, attending not only to what a text explicitly says but also to the absences, conventions, and cultural assumptions that organize its meaning.
Academic / Professional Context:
Students can consider how historical and social contexts influence literature while grounding competing interpretations in textual evidence.
Pedagogical Integration:
Literary criticism; race; context
Related Themes:
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