Overview

"In Search of a Beautiful Freedom brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin's rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and the Black artists she esteems. She moves from evoking the haunting strength of Odetta and the rise of soprano popular singers in the 1970s to the forging of a Black women's literary renaissance and the politics of Malcolm X through the lens of Black feminism. She reflects on pivotal moments in recent American history-including the banning of Toni Morrison's Beloved-and celebrates the intellectuals, artists, and personal relationships that have shaped her identity and her work. Featuring new and unpublished essays along with ones first appearing in outlets such as the New York Times and NPR, In Search of a Beautiful Freedom is a captivating collection that celebrates the work of ""one of the few great intellectuals in our time"" (Cornel West)."

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9780393355772

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Reviews

Scholarship and memoir meld in a stimulating collection.-- Kirkus Reviews Powerful...Griffin is consistently incisive and her arguments deeply nuanced. This serves as a testament to the lucidity of Griffin's stimulating oeuvre.-- Publishers Weekly Farah Jasmine Griffin's gorgeous essays reveal the genius, resistance, and freedom dreams of Black artists. Her insights give us hope; her words are endless beauty.--Salamishah Tillet, activist, scholar, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism Writer, teacher, activist, visionary, Farah Jasmine Griffin, our greatest Black feminist listener, weaves together a symphony of trenchant and pathbreaking meditations on the exquisite and transformative power of Black music, literature, visual art, film, politics and cultural theory in this singular collection of essays. In Search of a Beautiful Freedom is stirring and lyrical pedagogy in motion. Griffin's art of the essay is both a combination of dazzling prose and galvanizing, ethical wisdom. Rapturous, formidable, an instant classic.--Daphne Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution

Farah Jasmine Griffin's gorgeous essays reveal the genius, resistance, and freedom dreams of Black artists. Her insights give us hope; her words are endless beauty.--Salamishah Tillet, activist, scholar, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism Writer, teacher, activist, visionary, Farah Jasmine Griffin, our greatest Black feminist listener, weaves together a symphony of trenchant and pathbreaking meditations on the exquisite and transformative power of Black music, literature, visual art, film, politics and cultural theory in this singular collection of essays. In Search of a Beautiful Freedom is stirring and lyrical pedagogy in motion. Griffin's art of the essay is both a combination of dazzling prose and galvanizing, ethical wisdom. Rapturous, formidable, an instant classic.--Daphne Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution

Writer, teacher, activist, visionary, Farah Jasmine Griffin, our greatest Black feminist listener, weaves together a symphony of trenchant and pathbreaking meditations on the exquisite and transformative power of Black music, literature, visual art, film, politics and cultural theory in this singular collection of essays. In Search of a Beautiful Freedom is stirring and lyrical pedagogy in motion. Griffin's art of the essay is both a combination of dazzling prose and galvanizing, ethical wisdom. Rapturous, formidable, an instant classic. -- Daphne Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution Farah Jasmine Griffin's gorgeous essays reveal the genius, resistance, and freedom dreams of Black artists. Her insights give us hope; her words are endless beauty. -- Salamishah Tillet, activist, scholar, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism

Powerful...Griffin is consistently incisive and her arguments deeply nuanced. This serves as a testament to the lucidity of Griffin's stimulating oeuvre.-- Publishers Weekly Farah Jasmine Griffin's gorgeous essays reveal the genius, resistance, and freedom dreams of Black artists. Her insights give us hope; her words are endless beauty.--Salamishah Tillet, activist, scholar, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism Writer, teacher, activist, visionary, Farah Jasmine Griffin, our greatest Black feminist listener, weaves together a symphony of trenchant and pathbreaking meditations on the exquisite and transformative power of Black music, literature, visual art, film, politics and cultural theory in this singular collection of essays. In Search of a Beautiful Freedom is stirring and lyrical pedagogy in motion. Griffin's art of the essay is both a combination of dazzling prose and galvanizing, ethical wisdom. Rapturous, formidable, an instant classic.--Daphne Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution

Author Information

Farah Jasmine Griffin (Ph.D. Yale), is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University. She is the author of Who Set You Flowin’?: The African American Migration Narrative; If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday; Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II; and Read Until You Understand: New and Selected Essays, among other works.

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