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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 14h

Attended the Thinking from Black book launch hosted by The Poetry Project last night at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery. Nice to be back in that space. Excited to think with this book and introduce it to my students.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

“Writing is something that happens to us without us knowing.” Elizabeth Alexander in conversation with Hilton Als at the NYPL

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"... the Mighty Sparrow was built more like a mountain than a bird, with a capacious voice that could glide effortlessly from a deep, velvety baritone to a shimmering falsetto." -- Margalit Fox via @nytimes.com

nytimes.com

The Mighty Sparrow, Trinidadian Titan of Calypso, Is Dead at 91

He was sometimes described as the last of the true calypso singers. But in fact he simultaneously preserved calypso tradition and invented it anew.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"I learned many things during my study of dance that have everything to do with the writing of poetry and the life of a poet. I have thought about the relationship between bending the body to music in dance and the way we move words on the page to make music." -- Elizabeth Alexander

lithub.com

Elizabeth Alexander on Finding Life in the Second Spring of Middle Age

If I could have been a dancer, a real dancer, beyond those years at St. Mark’s, I probably would have done it. But my gifts were not that lavish, and my considerable drive was directed toward more …

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"I consider myself a reporter for imagined people, but even reporters succumb at some point. I’ve never written a book where I don’t feel like I’m not bleeding on the page." -- Marlon James via BOMB Magazine

bombmagazine.org

BOMB Magazine | Marlon James by Lynn Nottage

The Booker Prize winner, whose latest novel revolves around actors who are attacked during a play rehearsal, talks of the ways that music, art, and…

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

"A piece of this book [The Edge of Space-Time] is me saying there is value in banding with the poets, and fighting for the value of being curious and trying to articulate the world with whatever tools are available to us." -- @chanda.blacksky.app via @nytimes.com

nytimes.com

A Physicist Who Thinks in Poetry From the Cosmic Edge

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Taught my first graduate course @fordham.edu called "New Theories in Black Studies." Together we read nine books published in the past two to three years. Grateful to the students who made this course possible and the guest speakers who visited with us this semester.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

"The artistic and critical work emerging from the study of [Octavia] Butler’s archive astounds and continues... [Susana] Morris’s and [Chi-ming] Yang’s biographies are just two of a growing list of publications, talks, and performances emerging from the wealth of Butler’s bequest to the Huntington."

lareviewofbooks.org

Archives of Desire | Los Angeles Review of Books

Two recent biographies of Octavia Butler, drawing on her archive at the Huntington Library, ‘challenge us to reflect upon what it means to study a writer’s archive.’

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

"Neither of the movements she [Kimberlé Crenshaw] named was designed for mainstream acceptance. C.R.T. was born as an insurgent project, and intersectionality was once a critique of the civil-rights movement. What are they now?" -- Kelefa Sanneh via @newyorker.com

newyorker.com

The Idea That Reshaped Identity Politics Has a Complicated Backstory

Kimberlé Crenshaw gave us the terms “intersectionality” and “critical race theory.” Her new memoir shows that she isn’t done fighting over what they mean.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

"At the core of [Toni] Morrison’s career in letters was a listening practice... She listened so that the worlds she conjured on the page felt real." -- Danielle Amir Jackson via @theguardian.com

theguardian.com

How Toni Morrison blurred the lines between being an editor and a writer

Two recent books about Morrison attempt to make sense of her legacy as a writer, editor and thinker on Black life

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

"With Bounty, I wanted to see what the Arawaks, the Caribs, the Europeans, the Africans, the migrant Chinese and Indian workers would have seen within the one constant thing which would have brought attention to their gaze, a thing of beauty." -- Steve McQueen via @theguardian.com

theguardian.com

‘These flowers have witnessed horrific things’: Steve McQueen’s bountiful Grenada – in pictures

The artist and film-maker spent a summer on the island making poetic images of the local flora – and exploring their connections to Grenada’s historical trauma

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Had a great time presenting at the Faculty Research Roundtable in the English Department at Fordham University last night. Wonderful to share my work and learn what my colleagues are up to.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

I was so pleased to welcome the current fellows from the Patrick Healy Fellowship of Georgetown University to @fordham.edu for their NYC Career Day. Check out this write up about my time in the fellowship and the current fellows recent visit to NY. #hoyasaxa www.fordhamenglish.com/news1/the-pa...

fordhamenglish.com

The Patrick Healy Fellowship Visits Fordham’s Lincoln Center Campus — Fordham English

Student fellows from Georgetown University visited Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, hosted by Fordham English Professor and Georgetown alumni, Sasha Ann Panaram

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

“Writing is my weapon and my sanctuary.” — Tina Campt, The Scholar & Feminist Conference, Barnard College

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

"In her work, she [Paule Marshall] brought the black world together under her diasporan magnifying glass..." -- Mary Helen Washington, Paule Marshall: A Writer's Life

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

TONIGHT! We have moved the event with Dr. Durham to Zoom as a result of the blizzard. Join us online from 6:45 pm to 8:00 pm for the New Theories in Black Studies Speaker Series! RSVP directly to me at spanaram@fordham.edu and I will provide the Zoom link.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

"Unlike authoritative declarations of truth, fiction has no obligation to dispel ambiguity...In Beloved, [Toni] Morrison does take possession of the master’s tools, but she bends them, breaks them, and then uses them to reshape the house." -- @namwalien.bsky.social via @lithub.com.web.brid.gy

lithub.com

Namwali Serpell on Toni Morrison and the Power of Ambiguity

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. In an important 1987 essay, “The Site of Memory,” Morrison described how a double bind distorted the original slave narrat…

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

"In [Toni] Morrison’s eyes, the sacred function of the story is to find a form to hold what the mind can scarcely bear (or, as the censorship bears out, what society can scarcely admit)." -- Parul Sehgal via @nytimes.com

nytimes.com

Toni Morrison Was a Master of the Unthinkable

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

On February 24, 2026 from 6:45 pm to 8:00 pm, Dr. I. Augustus Durham (@imeanswhatisays.bsky.social) will visit @fordham.edu to discuss his book Stay Black and Die: On Melancholy and Genius (Duke University Press) in Freeman Hall, Tiered Lecture Hall 103. Join us! RSVP here: luma.com/hvcobbiu

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

"[Toni] Morrison, I think, does this to people who care enough to burrow into the text: exhilarate their intellect." -- Wesley Morris via @nytimes.com

nytimes.com

Toni Morrison, Literary Saint? This Book Shows You What Really Makes Her Great.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

"Altogether, On Morrison homes a novelist-critic’s eye in on a novelist-critic’s body of work and not only considers the beautiful world-building that has enamored publics for decades but does so with attention steeped in the craft of Black virtuosity." -- @omweekes.bsky.social

bookforum.com

A Heartbreaking Work of Swaggering Genius

Namwali Serpell’s study of Toni Morrison – Omari Weekes

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

"Quiet as it’s kept, nobody knows what The Bluest Eye is really about. Ever since its publication, it has left many unsure about what to make of it." -- @namwalien.bsky.social via @thenation.com

thenation.com

Nobody Knows “The Bluest Eye”

Toni Morrison’s debut novel might be her most misunderstood.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Took a trip to the Yale Center for British Art over the weekend to see the exhibit “Passages” by Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke. Here are a few photos from the exhibit, which is up until January 11, 2026. Check it out!

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

"The new Studio Museum roots Harlem in the present, without insisting on it, and in that way it tells a different tale: Harlem has a future, and the future is now." -- Hilton Als via @newyorker.com

newyorker.com

The New Studio Museum in Harlem Shows that Black Art Matters

Reopening with work by Tom Lloyd and others, the museum is a manifestation of possibility, specifically in Black lives.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

“Poetry is ceremony.” — Joy Harjo Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith in conversation with Krista Tippett at Symphony Space

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

The American Studies Association Annual Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico was fantastic. I participated in an ”Author Meets Critics” session for @jessagoldberg.bsky.social book “Abolition Time: Grammars of Law, Poetics of Justice.“ What a gift to be in conversation with such brilliant scholars.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

"[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

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.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

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 · 12/09/2025

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!

now.fordham.edu

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.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

"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

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.

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

“I am so busy. So caught up with living.” At the Full and Change of the Moon, Dionne Brand

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

"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

lithub.com

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 …

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

"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

nytimes.com

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

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

"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."

nybooks.com

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 ...

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

"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."

nytimes.com

Amy Sherald Cancels Her Smithsonian Show, Citing Censorship

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Sasha Ann Panaram @sashapanaram.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

"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