Description
In the open access book Higher Flight, pre-eminent scholar and activist James B. Stewart offers a much-needed critical assessment of the current state of Black/Africana studies in order to chart a path forward. In three equally groundbreaking sections, Stewart clarifies and refines the distinctive approaches that currently define the field; shows how creative production in particular can serve as a unique means of cultural analysis and political mobilization; and suggests how to restore the balance between intellectual inquiry and direct action in order to improve the actual lived experiences of people of African descent. Each section incorporates various forms of expression, including Stewart's essays, speeches, and poems, and the book as a whole covers a vast range of figures, issues, and phenomena, from W.E.B, Du Bois to James Baldwin, from conscious hip-hop to the Black Lives Matter movement, from Hurricane Katrina to Covid-19, and very much in between.Written with an access