The work of author Toni Morrison, who wrote many novels about the topics of slavery and progressive change, was the focus of the Troy University English Department’s most recent forum.

“I was very curious to sort of delve into what might happen to Toni Morrison in the future,” says English Professor Kirk Curnutt. “Because in the short period since she’s died there’s really sort of, I think, a lot of open questions about how her legacy will be curated.”

Conversations about race can be a difficult topic to discuss but Curnutt instead focuses on the creative side of Morrison’s work and how it can keep an author’s legacy alive in future years.

“I think it’s very important that for our own sense of creativity that we recognize that we can take the tools that we learn in a college classroom and really apply them to anything that we read out in the world or anything we see quite honestly,” says Curnutt. “But I also hope it’ll get people thinking about about race and about the need to have an open and honest conversation in which those of us who sort of assume we’re the mainstream learn to listen more to the artists whose culture create helped create that mainstream.”

For the full story watch Talor’s report.