Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise by Christel Temple (review)

A Review by Inte’A DeShields Transcendence and the Africana Literary Enterprise ends with a discussion of James Baldwin’s Esquire article in which he introduces the notion of an “atmosphere of freedom.” Relegated to the periphery in the arts, media, and literature, this strategic exclusion of Blackness supports the necessity of a monograph that not only centralizes African American culture. It provides tools for the creation of an “atmosphere of freedom” and the “‘transcendence’ enabled by...Africana Studies critical approaches to literary criticism [and] literary phenomena” (191).