Of Latitudes Unknown: James Baldwin's Radical Imagination [Hardcover]

Of Latitudes Unknownis 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 Unknownalso 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 Unknownequally 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.

Alice Mikal Cravenis Professor of Comparative Literature at the American University of Paris, France, and Chair of Film Studies. She is co-editor ofRichard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century(2011) andRichard Wright in a Post-Racial Imaginary(Bloomsbury, 2014). She is author ofVisible and Invisible Whiteness: American White Supremacy through the Cinematic Lens(2018).

William E. Dowis Professor of American Literature at the Universit? Paris-Est (UPEM), France, and Professor of English at the American University of Paris, France. He is the author ofNarrating Class in American Fiction