The 1993 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Toni Morrison is well established as one of the leading voices in American letters. Even so, her novels are often read narrowly rather than expansively, read as literary artifacts rather than as dynamic cultural texts.

Without ignoring the literary and artistic achievements of Morrison's writing, Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches calls attention to the cultural and political dimensions of her work. Drawing on a diverse range of approaches and theories--from W. E. B. DuBois to deconstruction and postmodernism, from black...