Book Description
Offers the first queer reading of all ten of Morrisons novels. Toni Morrison and the Queer Pleasure of Ghosts radically intervenes in one of the most established and sacred topics in Toni Morrison scholarship, love. Moving beyond Morrisons representation of ghosts as the forgotten or occluded past, Juda Bennett uncovers how Morrison imagines the spectral sphere as always already queer, a provocation and challenge to heteronormativitywith the ghost appearing as an active participant in disruptions of compulsory heterosexuality, as a figure embodying closet desires, or as a disembodied emanation that counterpoints homophobia. From The Bluest Eye to Home, Morrisons novels have included many queer ghosts that challenge our most cherished conceptions of love and speak to cultural anxieties about black sexualities, gay marriage, AIDS, lesbian visibility, and transgender identities. Not surprisingly, the scene-stealing ghost Beloved appears at the very heart of this book, but Bennett cautions against interpretative stasis, inviting readers to break free of the stranglehold Beloved has had on imaginations, so as not to miss the full force of Morrisons lifelong project to queer love.
