Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise (eBook)

Christel N. Temple is associate professor and chair of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

2. Twentieth Century Black Lives Mattered: Male Mortality in The Souls of Black Folk and The Living Is Easy3. “Can’t the Race Stand a Joke”: Humor and Pan-African Folk Negotiation in Banjo 4. Africana Literary Methods and the Bibliographic Shift in Iola Leroy and The Street5. Autobiography and Documentary Forms of Here I Stand as Black Cultural Mythology6. A Raisin in the Sun and the Tradition of Literary Pan-Africanism7. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the Demographic Literary Standard8. The Parable of the Sower’s Earthseed as Black Liberation Theology9. Self-Eulogy as Prophetic Afro-Futurism in Narratives of John Henrik Clarke and Malcolm X10. Maat and the Psychology of Justice in the Morrisonesque Community of Perfect Peace11. Beyoncé? No. Lauryn Hill? Yes: Interludes of Womanist Hip Hop and the Traditional Activist Genre12. Broadway as Text: Africana History on Stage in Hamilton and Aida13. Image and Verse, Music and Media: Diasporic Performance of Cultural MemoryConclusion: An Atmosphere of Freedom

Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise —where Black studies, Pan-African studies, and Africology meet Africana literary criticism and reader response criticism—is a brilliant coming together of theory and literary analysis that provides a new and much-needed approach to reading literary texts.

Temple centers Africology as a cultural lens. By doing so, she expands and reshapes literary criticism. In essence, this intervention into literary criticism can operate as a companion to existing and emerging African American anthologies. Transcendence is a paradigm shift that certainly incorporates previous works of literary criticism, but provides a new Afrocentric framework for learning and teaching Black culture.Her contribution repositions our notion of text and reader by connecting historical readings to contemporary literature. She traces a Black cultural evolution from 19th century novels, through contemporary fiction and theatre, to Afro-futurism and hip hop thereby offering a rich continuum of Black writing and creative impulses. Her choices for each chapter combine new approaches to well-known pieces and innovative assessments of lesser-known but critical texts. Beyond taking a deconstructive stance, Temple focuses on Black freedom. Liberation permeates her prose, creating a fresh, constructive journey for her readers. Indeed, the entire text offers a ‘critical benchmark,’ one of her goals clearly reached.

In Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise, Temple’s critical approach models the freedom of vision and engagement that I seek when embracing an expansive African aestheticism and my best pedagogy. It is a major achievement.