This course explores the life and work of Toni Morrison (1931-2019), focusing on the author’s deft negotiation of what she terms “the problem of language” in conveying renderings of “indisputably black” life. Incomparable in her writerly capacities, Morrison, never ceased to stretch her intellect and imagination to create language (fiction and non-fiction based) capable of arresting easy conflation of her visions of “indisputably black” life with monolithic, grossly drawn visions of black life that run rampant in the U.S, particularly along lines of ability, class, gender, race, and sex. In our course, we will read a selection of Morrison’s essays and novels, and also view a key documentary about the author, in pursuit of understanding not only Morrison’s wonderfully complex relationship(s) with language, but also the complexities of our own.