"A reasonable man adjusts to his environment. An unreasonable man does not. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man. I prefer not to adjust to my environment. I refuse the prison of 'I' and choose the open spaces of 'we.'"
—from "Moral Inhabitants" by Toni Morrison

In honor of the immense and far reaching influence of Toni Morrison, Kundiman Midwest presents a virtual discussion with Asian American writers and scholars whose work is informed by Morrison's art, life, and legacy. Presentation topics will include elders and ancestors, writing as a working mother, and madness as survival tactic in The Bluest Eye. This event was organized as part of "Beloved: Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison," a yearlong celebration hosted by Literary Cleveland and Ohio Humanities.

This virtual event will take place at 6:00 pm CT / 7:00 pm ET on Zoom. Join via the link here.

Panelists:

Nina Li Coomes is a Japanese and American writer currently living in Chicago. Her work has been published in Vulture, EATER, the Believer and elsewhere. She is a recipient of fellowships from Aspen, Tin House and Hedgebrook.

Nghiem Tran was born in Vietnam and raised in Kansas. He received his BA from Vassar College and his MFA from Syracuse University. A Kundiman Fellow, his poetry has been published in The American Poetry Review, The Offing, and The Margins. He is the author of the novella, We're Safe When We're Alone, and the forthcoming poetry collection, Our Hours Are Married To Shadow, both published by Coffee House Press. He is currently a PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz studying queer Vietnamese-American literature.

Wilson C. Chen is a Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program at Benedictine University, where he teaches courses in African American literature. His recent research focuses on 1930s US literature and the "worker writer" movement, and he is completing a project on Zora Neale Hurston's writings about African American labor in the 1930s. Chen's other research interests include contemporary Afro-Caribbean American women’s fiction, publishing several essays on Haitian American diasporic writer Edwidge Danticat.