Toni Morrison Senior Fellow
Philathia Bolton, then an Associate Professor of English at The University of Akron in Ohio, was the inaugural recipient of the Toni Morrison Senior Fellowship. She also served on advisory committees for the Pan-African Studies Program and the Women’s Studies Program and was the English Department’s honors advisor. Her research interests include twentieth-century African American literature, the U.S. civil rights movement, and critical race studies.
Bolton has lectured on these subjects and presented her research at national and international conferences, including those of the American Studies Association and the College Language Association. In 2019, she participated in a thematic residency program for writers at Faberllull in Spain. There, she collaborated with scholars from around the world on an edited collection of essays examining the continued significance of gender disparities. Bolton’s essay considers the historical significance and consequences of colorism in the United States from a literary perspective, with Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) as its primary texts.
Her forthcoming chapter in a volume devoted to Zora Neale Hurston argues that authors such as James Baldwin and Toni Morrison can be read within a Hurstonian tradition through their use of the vernacular and their cultural approaches to writing. During her fellowship at The Africa Institute, Bolton continued her research and writing on Morrison, revisiting work that connects the metaphorical significance of Macon Dead in Song of Solomon with selected novels by Black women writers of the 1970s and 1980s.
Bolton is a resident of Toni Morrison’s home state of Ohio. She has been active in her community as an educator beyond the traditional classroom and as a supporter of the arts. Her contributions include teaching through the Upward Bound Program, presenting to book clubs for retirees, and serving on the boards of city- and statewide arts organizations. Bolton is an alumna of Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned her MA and Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue University, West Lafayette.
