Lavender, Isiah
TR 12:45 PM
Park Hall 145
Feminist Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism, perhaps, might be best defined as a way to envision possible black futures through a multiply distraught past involving technoculture and spiritual practices. At its simplest, afrofuturism means speculative fiction written by black people in a global context. As I see it, afrofuturism is a set of race inflected reading protocols designed to investigate the optimisms and anxieties framing the speculative imaginings of black people. As a speculative concern with what was via what is via what could be, afrofuturism offers a complex challenge to remember and reconnect a past that informs the present and builds a future. Alternate histories, captivity narratives, alien encounters, and travels through time and space provide ideal ways to go b(l)ack to the future. Yet, this particular course concerns the stories created by black women that challenge gender oppression, that aspire to establish gender equality, that safeguard the survival of the black race by dismantling patriarchy.
Primary Texts:
Octavia E. Butler, Dawn
Dhonielle Clayton, The Belles
Tracy Deonn, Legendborn
Tananarive Due, My Soul to Keep
Justina Ireland, Dread Nation
N. K. Jemisin, The City We Became
Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria
Secondary Text:
Cooper, Craft Tanner, and Morris, Feminist AF: A Guide to Crushing Girlhood