{"id":475,"date":"2019-10-01T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T11:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/?p=475"},"modified":"2019-10-12T18:57:19","modified_gmt":"2019-10-12T17:57:19","slug":"toni-morrison-goodness-literary-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/2019\/10\/01\/toni-morrison-goodness-literary-imagination\/","title":{"rendered":"Page Breaks: Goodness and the Literary Imagination (Wed 9 Oct)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Toni Morrison&#8217;s essay on altruism and the literary imagination explores the role of goodness in fiction and reflects on why &#8220;evil has a blockbuster audience&#8221;.<\/p>\r\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>&#8220;Evil has a blockbuster audience; Goodness lurks backstage. Evil has vivid speech; Goodness bites its tongue. It is Billy Budd, who can only stutter. It is Coetzee\u2019s Michael K, with a harelip that so limits his speech that communication with him is virtually impossible. It is Melville\u2019s Bartleby, confining language to repetition. It is Faulkner\u2019s Benjy, an idiot.&#8221; &#8211; Toni Morrison, \u2018Goodness: Altruism and the Literary Imagination\u2019<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid #eeeeee;padding: 10px;margin-left: 25px\">\r\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-476 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/75\/2019\/10\/To-Kill-a-Mockingbird3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"282\" height=\"275\" \/><\/strong><strong>Text:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p>Toni Morrison, \u2018Goodness: Altruism and the Literary Imagination\u2019 (2019) (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/08\/07\/books\/toni-morrison-goodness-altruism-literary-imagination\">LINK<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/canvas.bham.ac.uk\/files\/8080340\/download?download_frd=1\">PDF<\/a>)<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Time and Place:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;font-weight: 400\">14:00-15:00, Wed 9 Oct 2019<br \/><\/span>Arts 436 (Whitting Room, fourth floor of the Arts building)<\/p>\r\n<p>Please contact <a href=\"mailto:d.butchard@bham.ac.uk\">d.butchard@bham.ac.uk<\/a> if you have any difficulty accessing the readings. You may need a Birmingham ID and password to download\u00a0 PDFs.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 80%\">Image: Detail from artwork for\u00a0<em>To Kill a Mockingbird.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":5} \/-->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:quote \/-->\r\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<!-- wp:heading {\"level\":5} -->\r\n<h3 style=\"margin-left: 25px\"><strong>About the Postgraduate Seminar:<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n<div style=\"margin-left: 25px\"><!-- \/wp:heading -->\r\n\r\n<!-- wp:paragraph --> This is an informal weekly reading group within the Department of English Literature. There will be tea, coffee and biscuits and you are very welcome!\r\n<p><blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"RElP1fmMgP\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/page-breaks\/\">Page Breaks: Postgraduate Seminar in English Literature<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&#8220;Page Breaks: Postgraduate Seminar in English Literature&#8221; &#8212; Postgraduate Research in English Literature \" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/page-breaks\/embed\/#?secret=RElP1fmMgP\" data-secret=\"RElP1fmMgP\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toni Morrison&#8217;s essay on altruism and the literary imagination explores the role of goodness in fiction and reflects on why &#8220;evil has a blockbuster audience&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,1,3],"tags":[119,118,120,117],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2019-20","category-english-lit","category-page-breaks","tag-altruism","tag-goodness","tag-literary-imagination","tag-toni-morrison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/englitpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}