Vineyard Haven library’s annual literature seminar with Philip Weinstein will be presented as a series of virtual events on the Zoom video-conferencing platform, beginning in September. Weinstein will discuss the works of Toni Morrison, one of the 20th century’s most influential novelists and intellectuals, and recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to a press release, the class will be reading four novels: “The Bluest Eye” will be discussed on Wednesday, Sept. 16, “Sula” on Wednesday, Sept. 30, “The Song of Solomon” on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and Wednesday, Oct. 28, and “Beloved” on Thursday, Nov. 12, and Wednesday, Dec. 2. All events begin at 5:30 pm.
Philip Weinstein is Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English Emeritus at Swarthmore College. He has been offering literary seminars in cooperation with the Vineyard Haven Public Library since 2012. His publications include “Henry James and the Requirements of the Imagination” (1971), “The Semantics of Desire: Changing Models of Identity from Dickens to Joyce” (1984), “Faulkner’s Subject: A Cosmos No One Owns” (1992), “What Else But Love? The Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison” (1996), “Unknowing: The Work of Modernist Fiction” (2005), “Becoming Faulkner” (2009), and “Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage” (2015). He is currently working on a book of essays entitled “Soul-Error.”
In order to allow the library to distribute class materials and communicate with students, participants should register online through the library’s website,vhlibrary.org, or by calling 508-696-4210. Prior to the first class, registered participants will receive a welcome email with Zoom access information and a reading guide. Copies of the books may be requested through the local CLAMS library.
