The Harlem Renaissance is rightly considered a moment of creative exuberance and unprecedented explosion in the African American world of arts and letters. Today, there is a renewed interest in this movement, calling for a reevaluation and a closer scrutiny of the participants. Temples for Tomorrow reconsiders the period -- between two world wars -- which confirmed the intuitions of W. E. B. DuBois on the ""color line"" and gave birth to the ""American dilemma"", later evoked by Gunnar Myrdal. Issuing from a generation bearing new hopes and aspirations, a vision formed and developed around the concept of the New Negro, with a goal: to recreate an African American identity and claim its legitimate place in the heart of the nation. In reality, this movement developed into a remarkable institutional network. It remained the vision of an elite, but gave birth to tensions and differences in the African American community.
This collection attempts to assess Harlem's role as a ""Black Mecca"", as a ""site of intimate performance"" of African American life, and as a focal point in the creation of a diasporic identity in dialogue with the Caribbean and French-speaking areas. Essays treat the complex interweaving of Primitivism and Modernism and of folk culture and elitist aspirations in different artistic media, with a view to defining the interaction between music, visual arts, and literature.
Genevive Fabre is professor at the University Paris 7 where she is director of the Center of African American Research. Author of books on James Agee, on African American Theatre (Paris, CNRS and Harvard U P), she has contributed to several collective volumes and encyclopedias. Co-author of books on F.S. Fitzgerald, American minorities, she has edited or co-edited several volumes: on Hispanic literatures, on Barrio culture in the USA, on ethnicity, two volumes on "Feasts and Celebrations among Ethnic Communities," two on Toni Morrison, and a book on History and Memory in Afr Am Culture. She is now co-editing with Michel Feith a collection of essays on The Harlem Renaissance. A Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard, The National Humanities Center and the American Antiquarian Society, she is currently working on African American celebrative culture (1730-1880).
Michel Feith is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nantes, France. He has spent several years abroad; his experience of living in Australia, Japan and the United States has sensitivized him to issues of multiculturalism. He wrote a doctoral thesis under the direction of Professor Genevive Fabre, on " Myth and History in Chinese American and Chicano Literature " (1995), and his publications include articles on Maxine Hong Kingston, John Edgar Wideman, and the Harlem Renaissance.
