Lexington Books
Pages: 244
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-4985-4508-2 • Hardback • November 2017 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-4510-5 • Paperback • March 2020 • $47.99 • (£37.00)
978-1-4985-4509-9 • eBook • November 2017 • $45.50 • (£35.00)
Christel N. Temple is professor and chair of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Introduction: The Canon and the Africana Worldview
1. Literary Africology
2. Twentieth Century Black Lives Mattered: Male Mortality in The Souls of Black Folk and The Living Is Easy
3. “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 Street
5. Autobiography and Documentary Forms of Here I Stand as Black Cultural Mythology
6. A Raisin in the Sun and the Tradition of Literary Pan-Africanism
7. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the Demographic Literary Standard
8. The Parable of the Sower’sEarthseed as Black Liberation Theology
9. Self-Eulogy as Prophetic Afro-Futurism in Narratives of John Henrik Clarke and Malcolm X
10. Maat and the Psychology of Justice in the Morrisonesque Community of Perfect Peace
11. Beyoncé? No. Lauryn Hill? Yes: Interludes of Womanist Hip Hop and the Traditional Activist Genre
12. Broadway as Text: Africana History on Stage in Hamilton and Aida
13. Image and Verse, Music and Media: Diasporic Performance of Cultural Memory
Conclusion: An Atmosphere of Freedom
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.
— Joanne V. Gabbin, James Madison University
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.
— Stephanie Y. Evans, Clark Atlanta University
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.
— Georgene Bess Montgomery, Clark Atlanta University