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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 1d

"[Toni] Morrison’s skill as an editor surely made her a better writer, but it undeniably took time and energy away from her own work, and it was never fully appreciated as an intellectual endeavor in itself." -- Marina Magloire via @thenation.com

“To Free Someone Else”: Toni Morrison the Book Editor

A recent book on her career in publishing makes the case that the great American novelist should also be seen as a pathbreaking editor.

www.thenation.com

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Reposted by Sasha Ann Panaram

Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 25d

The Alchemy Lecture 2025

Sound—at the Interregnum

Glen Coulthard
Canisia Lubrin
Madeleine Thien
Immanuel Wilkins

Date: October 30, 2025
Time: 5 - 8 p.m. (Reception: 5 - 6 p.m.)
Venue: Tribute Communities Recital Hall, CIBC Lobby (Location) YorkU
Event type: Hybrid – in person and online

GLEN COULTHARD
(Yellowknives Dene/Canada), Scholar of Indigenous Studies)

IMMANUEL WILKINS
(US) Saxophonist, Composer, Arranger

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 15d

I recently participated in the Toni Morrison Symposium @cornelluniversity.bsky.social as part of the “Toni Morrison and the Word Work of Her Nonfiction” panel. Sharing a few photos from the event including a mural of Toni Morrison painted by students from Ithaca High School.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 26d

Had a chance to talk about why I like teaching A Map to the Door of No Return by Dionne Brand. There has yet to be a class @fordham.edu where I haven't had this book on the syllabus. Great to see what my colleagues are teaching, too!

The Book I Love to Teach: Fordham Professors Share Their Syllabus Standouts

From a history of the deadly poisons to a Pulitzer Prize-winner by Toni Morrison, Fordham faculty shared the books they love to teach.

now.fordham.edu

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Aug 21

"A former documentary photographer, [Lorna] Simpson harnessed the medium in her early practice to develop a body of work that explores how meaning is assigned to the body and its images." -- Rachel Hunter Himes via @thenation.com

The Art and Genius of Lorna Simpson

A new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art tracks what has changed and what has remained the same in the artist’s work.

www.thenation.com

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Aug 20

“I am so busy. So caught up with living.”

At the Full and Change of the Moon, Dionne Brand

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Reposted by Sasha Ann Panaram

Courtney Thorsson @courtneythorsson.bsky.social · Aug 19

Thank you @sashapanaram.bsky.social for your review of *The Sisterhood.* I feel lucky to be in scholarly conversation with your work.

scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/rals/ar...

@columbiaup.bsky.social

The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture

On a cold night in February 1977, a group of eight Black women posed for a photograph in Brooklyn. These women who called themselves The Sisterhood gathered under a framed portrait of Bessie Smith. So...

scholarlypublishingcollective.org

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Aug 20

It was such a joy to read and review your latest book! I learned so much from you.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Aug 20

"She [Octavia E. Butler] wanted freedom and independence—not the responsibility of babies or a husband. She made writing her rebellion, the main refuge from the strictness of her upbringing." -- Susana M. Morris via Literary Hub

Exploring Octavia Butler’s Beginnings as a Sci-Fi Trailblazer

It was Octavia Margaret who gave her daughter the spark to even consider a writing career. She saw her quiet, bookish ten-year-old daughter writing, saw the delight on her face as she created, and …

lithub.com

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Aug 19

"The vague impression that Bronxites burned down their own borough endures, while the vast fortunes made were forgotten." -- @benchansfield.bsky.social via @newyorker.com

Did Racial Capitalism Set the Bronx on Fire?

To some, the fires lit in New York in the late seventies signalled rampant criminality; to others, rebellion. But maybe they were signs of something else entirely.

www.newyorker.com

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Aug 6

"You see me in the garden walking around just plundering around thinking of a sentence. Sometimes it takes me a week to finish a sentence just to get it right." -- Jamaica Kincaid via @nytimes.com

After 50 Years of Writing, Jamaica Kincaid Insists She’s Still an Amateur

www.nytimes.com

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jul 31

"One might say that her [Jamaica Kincaid] work is self-consciously modest, that her fiction never grandstands. It gets to the marrow of how motherhood, childhood, and femininity are dented by colonialism, certainly, but it does so by illuminating the struggle simply to become a human being."

Suddenly, Jamaica | Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Jamaica Kincaid’s commanding, irreverent work immerses her readers in a black world without explaining or defining its blackness. This seems to be a major departure in the history of African American ...

www.nybooks.com

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jul 24

"Amy Sherald has withdrawn her upcoming solo show from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery because she said she had been told the museum was considering removing her painting depicting a transgender Statue of Liberty to avoid provoking President Trump."

Amy Sherald Cancels Her Smithsonian Show, Citing Censorship

www.nytimes.com

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jul 22

"To sustain poetry in the absence of its radical muse—left collective political action—to sustain poetry when there is no inspiration, that was my work." -- Dionne Brand via @jewishcurrents.bsky.social

The Measure of the World

By attending to the vibrant specificity of Black life, poet Dionne Brand contests the cruel mathematics of empire.

jewishcurrents.org

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jul 11

Had to grab the Canadian version of Dionne Brand’s Salvage while in town. Love the cover!

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jun 27

Amy Sherald: American Sublime at the Whitney Museum

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jun 23

Caught a few incredible documentaries at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier in June. First time attending and already can’t wait for next year.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · Jun 18

"With great respect and meticulous research, @danaawilliamsink.bsky.social reveals [Toni] Morrison as a hard worker, a devoted literary citizen and one of the most important book editors of the 20th century." -- Martha Southgate via @nytimes.com