On June 17, 2025, the AmerikaHaus NRW hosted its fourth annual Juneteenth Lecture, held in cooperation with the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies and the North American Studies program at the University of Bonn. The event was titled “What Comes Before the Haunting? Toni Morrison’s Late Style in A Mercy” and featured a compelling lecture by Kinohi Nishikawa, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University.

Through an analysis of Morrison’s manuscripts and publication process, Nishikawa highlighted the novel’s gothic aesthetic and its experimental narrative structure, which shifts perspectives and unfolds in three parts. He emphasized Morrison’s late-career ambition to challenge readers’ expectations and to engage with trauma not by repression, but through active remembering and dialogue. Central to A Mercy is the question of how diverse individuals come together amid hardship—an inquiry that resonates with broader discussions of race, memory, and reconciliation in American history.

Nishikawa’s lecture thus situated A Mercy as a vital work in Morrison’s oeuvre, marking a nuanced approach to the afterlife of slavery by imagining a world before its full establishment, while grappling with its enduring effects.

We sincerely thank Kinohi Nishikawa, the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, the North American Studies program at the University of Bonn, and all attendees for contributing to the success of this year’s Juneteenth event, which was kindly supported by the Federal Foreign Office.