The collection consists of 4 audiocassette tape recordings of a one-day (May 8, 1989) Bornstein Conference organized by English professor Barbara Bowen at Queens College entitled, "Women, Race and Memory: Toni Morrison's Beloved." As part of the conference, Toni Morrison gave an address in which she spoke about her mother's stroke, subsequently published in revised form in The Source of Self-Regard. Morrison also answered student questions and read from her novel Beloved. The tapes, 120 minutes each, include recordings created by City University of New York audiovisual staff; they may contain some duplicate recordings as they cover a series of sessions.

The program was as follows:

Theorizing Memory: Ethnicity and Gender Moderator: Joan Dayan Karen Fields, "To Embrace Dead Strangers: Memory and History" Doris Sommer, "No Secrets': Testimonio and Guarded Truth" Catherine Clinton, "Blood-Burning Moon: Rape, Memory and African American Women" Toni Morrison, Address: "Race, Women and Memory"; Question and answer Beloved as Re-Memory Moderator: Melvin Dixon William L. Andrews, "Beloved and the Slave Narrative Tradition" Hortense J. Spillers, "Memory in Beloved" Respondent: bell hooks Morrison, reading from Beloved