Chicago Public Library presents Dwight McBride, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Professor of African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies, in a lecture on Toni Morrison’s importance not just as a novelist, but as a leading American intellectual.

This kick off to Chicago’s fall city-wide reading initiative also includes a brief performance from the opera Margaret Garner, by composer Richard Danielpour and for which Morrison wrote the libretto, presented with assistance from the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Recorded Tuesday, September 07, 2010 at Harold Washington Library Center