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Christel N. Temple is professor and chair of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh.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,
<p>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.<br />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. <br />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.</p>
- 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,
Africana literary critic and cultural theory scholar, Christel N. Temple, whose groundbreaking books, Literary Pan-Africanism: History, Contexts, and Criticism (2005) and Literary Spaces: Introduction to Comparative Black Literature (2007),have been some of the most influential models of contemporary Africana Studies-based literary criticism, responds to the demand for a core disciplinary source that comprehensively defines and models literary praxis from the vantage point of Africana Studies. This highly anticipated seminal study finally institutionalizes the discipline’s literary enterprise. Framing the concept of transcendence, she covers over a dozen traditional African American works in an original and thought-provoking analysis that places canonical approaches in enlightened discourse with Africana studies reader-response priorities.
This study makes traditional literature come alive in conversation with topics of masculinity, womanism, Black Lives Matter, humor, Pan-Africanism, transnationalism, worldview, the subject place of Africa, cultural mythology, hero dynamics, Black psychology, demographics, history, Black liberation theology, eulogy, cultural memory, Afro-futurism, the Kemetic principle of Maat, social justice, rap and hip hop, Diaspora, and performance.Scholars now have a focused Africana Studies text—for both introductory and advanced literature courses—to capture the power of the African American literary canon while modeling the most dynamic practical applications of humanities-to-social science practices.
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
The Critical Africana Studies book series features critical, interdisciplinary, and intersectional scholarship within the emerging field of Africana studies. Most scholars within the field agree that 'Africana studies' is essentially a rubric term utilized to conceptually capture the teaching and research of a wide-range of intellectuals (both 'academic' and 'organic' intellectuals) working in disciplines or subdisciplines as discursively diverse as: African studies, African diasporan studies, African American studies, Afro-American studies, Afro-Asian studies, Afro-European studies, Afro-Islamic studies, Afro-Jewish studies, Afro-Latino studies, Afro-Native American studies, Caribbean studies, Pan-African studies, Black British studies and, of course, Black studies. Epistemological and methodological advances in Africana studies, as well as historical and cultural changes, over the last fifty years have led to an increased interest in continental and diasporan African history, culture, thought, and struggles. The Critical Africana Studies book series directly responds to the heightened demand for monographs and edited volumes that innovatively explore Africa and its diaspora employing cutting-edge critical, interdisciplinary, and intersectional theory and methods.
Series Editor: Marquita Gammage
Advisory Board: Martell Teasley, Kimberly Nichele Brown, Jerome Schiele, and Bayyinah S. Jeffries