Of Latitudes Unknown: James Baldwin's Radical Imagination

Of Latitudes Unknown is a multi-faceted study of James Baldwin’s radical imagination. It is a selective and thoughtful survey that re-investigates the grounds of Baldwin studies and provides new critical approaches, subjects, and orientations for Baldwin criticism. This volume joins recent critical collections in “un-fragmenting” Baldwin and establishing further conjunctions in his work: the essay and the novel; the polemical and the aesthetic; his use of and participation in visual forms; and his American as well as international identities. But it goes beyond other recent studies by focusing on new entities of Baldwin’s radical imagination: his English and French language selves; his late encounters with Africa; his appearances on French television and interviews with French journalists; and his unrecognized literary journalism. Of Latitudes Unknown also addresses Baldwin’s relations with the Arab world, his anticipation of contemporary film and media studies, and his paradoxical public intellectualism. As it reassesses Baldwin’s contributions to and influences on world literary history, Of Latitudes Unknown equally explores why the critical appreciation of Baldwin’s writing continues to flourish, and why it remains a vast territory whose parts lie open to much deeper exploration and elaboration.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: The Death of the Prophet Douglas Field (University of Manchester, UK) Introduction: Baldwin’s Radical Imagination Alice Mikal Craven (American University of Paris, France) and William E. Dow (Université Paris-Est, France) Part 1: James Baldwin: Film, Photography, and the Visual Arts 1. Black Bodies on Screen, White Privilege in Hollywood: James Baldwin on Lang and Preminger Alice Mikal Craven (American University of Paris, France) 2. Picturing Jimmy, Picturing Self: James Baldwin, Beauford Delaney, and the Color of Light James Smalls (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA) 3. Lessons in Light: Beauford Delaney’s and James Baldwin’s ‘Unnameable Objects’ Tyler T. Schmidt (CUNY Lehman, USA) Part 2: Baldwin’s Journalism and Literary Journalism 4. “To End the Racial Nightmare, and Achieve Our Country”: James Baldwin and the US Civil Rights Movement Kathy Roberts Forde (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) 5. The Documentary Tradition in James Baldwin’s Écriture Vérité Isabelle Meuret (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) 6. Journeys of the “I” in James Baldwin’s Literary-journalistic Essays William E. Dow (Université Paris-Est, France) Part 3: Baldwin Re-Sighted Transnationally 7. French Baldwin (on Screen): “le criminel artiste” Claudine Raynaud (University Paul Valéry, France) 8. The Terror Within: Giovanni's Room, L’Étranger, and the Possibility of an Absurd Heroism Timothy McGinnis (Harvard Medical School, USA) 9. James Baldwin’s Black Power: No Name in the Street, Fanon, Camus, and the Black Panthers James Miller (Kingston University, UK) Part 4: James Baldwin and Changing Communities: Recontextualizing Baldwin’s Legacy 10. Continuing a Legacy: James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the African American Witness Marcus Bruce (Bates College, USA) 11. Baldwin, the “Arab,” and the End of the West Bill V. Mullen (Purdue University, USA) 12. Effective/Defective James Baldwin Robert F. Reid-Pharr (City University of New York, USA) List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Alice Mikal Craven is Professor of Comparative Literature at the American University of Paris, France, and Chair of Film Studies. She is co-editor of Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century (2011) and Richard Wright in a Post-Racial Imaginary (Bloomsbury, 2014). She is author of Visible and Invisible Whiteness: American White Supremacy through the Cinematic Lens (2018). William E. Dow is Professor of American Literature at the Université Paris-Est (UPEM), France, and Professor of English at the American University of Paris, France. He is the author of Narrating Class in American Fiction (2009) and co-editor of Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century (2011) and Richard Wright in a Post-Racial Imaginary (Bloomsbury, 2014). Yoko Nakamura is a Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iowa, USA.

Review :
This collection of essays on Baldwin’s radical imagination is well timed with its focus on Baldwin’s connection to visual arts and media studies, but it covers other fertile ground in examining Baldwin’s literary journalism and his internationalism, including his interactions with Africa and the Arab world … A much more complex picture of Baldwin emerges; this is a Baldwin who demanded understanding of the past, interrogated the present, and imagined a stronger future. Drawing on the Baldwin archive in creative and compelling ways, this collection expands understanding of Baldwin as a person and as a cultural figure. The collection will interest international studies and media studies scholars as well as scholars of African American literature. Of Latitudes Unknown shows us a Baldwin we need to see now, one freed from the furious perfection and certain martyrdom of prophecy. The volume’s emphasis on both formalism and internationalism restores crucial aspects of a figure whose weight as an American polemicist rested on his high style and regular absence from his native country. This volume contributes to the expanding body of Baldwin criticism in important ways, emphasizing visual art, literary journalism, and transnational perspectives. As we continue to assess and appreciate Baldwin’s legacy, the essays collected here help to paint the complex, layered portrait of Baldwin he deserves and demands. Brilliantly edited, this volume offers truly exciting and fresh perspectives on Baldwin’s body of work with direct implications for our world then and now.