Afrofuturism

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In his book More Brilliant Than The Sun, Kodwo Eshun gives a concise summary of history of the term:

AfroFuturism comes from Mark Dery's '93 book [Flame Wars], but the trajectory starts with Mark Sinker. In 1992, Sinker starts writing on Black Science Fiction; that's because he's just been to the States and Greg Tate's been writing a lot about the interface between science fiction and Black Music. Tate wrote this review called "Yo Hermeneutics" which was a review of David Toop's Rap Attack plus a Houston Baker book, and it was one of the first pieces to lay out this science fiction of black technological music right there. And so anyway Mark went over, spoke to Greg, came back, started writing on Black Science Fiction. He wrote a big piece in The Wire, a really early piece on Black Science Fiction in which he posed this question, asks "What does it mean to be human?" In other words, Mark made the correlation between Blade Runner and slavery, between the idea of alien abduction and the real events of slavery. (cont.)

Music[edit]

Film[edit]

Fiction[edit]

Documentary[edit]

  • The Last Angel of History, dir. John Akomfrah, 45 min. Written and researched by Edward George of Black Audio Film Collective. Explores relationships between Pan-African culture, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and computer technology. Featuring Tate, Eshun, Goldie, Clinton, Derrick May and others. [1]

Communities, collectives[edit]

Resources[edit]

Criticism, reflection, historisation, statements[edit]

Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures In Sonic Fiction, 1998, Log, PDF.
Social Text 71: "Afrofuturism", ed. Alondra Nelson, 2002, Log, PDF.
  • Mark Dery, "Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose", in Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture, ed. Dery, Duke University Press, 1994, pp 179-222. [5]
    • "Black to the Future: Afro-Futurismus", in Loving the Alien, ed. Diedrich Diederichsen, Berlin: ID, 1998. (German)
  • Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than The Sun. Adventures in Sonic Fiction, London: Quartet Books, 1998, 17+222 pp; 2nd ed., London: Verso, 2018, 240 pp. [6]
    • Heller als die Sonne: Abenteuer in der Sonic Fiction, trans. Dietmar Dath, Berlin: ID-Archiv, 1999, 238 pp. (German)
    • Más brillante que el sol: incursiones en la ficción sónica, trans. Tadeo Lima, Buenos Aires: Caja Negra, 2018, 328 pp. (Spanish)
    • Più brillante del sole: avventure nella fantasonica, trans. Alessandro Mazzi, Rome: Nero, 2021, 281 pp. (Italian)
  • Diedrich Diederichsen (ed.), Loving the Alien. Science Fiction, Diaspora, Multikultur, Berlin: ID, 1998, 224 pp. [7] (German)
  • Michelle-Lee White, Keith Piper, Alondra Nelson, Arnold J. Kemp, Erika Dalya Muhammad, "Aftrotech and Outer Spaces", Art Journal 60:3, Autumn 2001, pp 90-104.
  • Sandra Grayson, Visions of the Third Millennium, 2002.
  • Kodwo Eshun, "Further Considerations on Afrofuturism", The New Centennial Review 3:2, Summer 2003, pp 287-302.
    • "Outras considerações sobre o afrofuturismo", in Histórias afro-atlânticas, vol. 2: antologia, eds. Adriano Pedrosa, Amanda Carneiro, André Mesquita, São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, 2018. [10] (Brazilian Portuguese)
  • Science Fiction Studies 34:2 (102): "Afrofuturism", Jul 2007. [11]
  • Adilifu Nama, Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film, 2008.
  • Sandra Jackson, The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, Futurism and the Speculative, 2011.
  • The Shadows Took Shape, eds. Naima J. Keith and Zoe Whitley, New York: Studio Museum in Harlem, 2013, 160 pp. Review: Malatjie (JAS).
  • Paradoxa 25: "Africa SF", ed. Mark Bould, 2013. [12]
  • Martine Syms, "The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto", Rhizome, 17 Dec 2013; repr., The Third Rail 3, 2014.
    • "El Manifiesto Afrofuturista Mundano", in Ciberfeminismo. De VNS Matrix a Laboria Cuboniks, eds. Remedios Zafra and Teresa López-Pellisa, Madrid: Holobionte, 2019. [13] (Spanish)
  • Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, eds. Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, Lexington Books, 2016. [15]
  • Obsidian 42(1-2): "Speculating Futures: Black Imagination & the Arts", eds. Sheree Renée Thomas, Nisi Shawl, Isiah Lavender III, and Krista Franklin, 2016. [16]
    • Sheree Renée Thomas, "And So Shaped the World".
    • Isiah Lavendar III, "Of Alien Abductions, Pocket Universes & Slave Narratives".
    • Dorothy Stringer, "Slavery & the Afrofuture in Samuel R. Delany's 'Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand'".
    • Jonathan Harvey, "Afrofuturism, Cyborgs & the Fate of Imperialism in Bill Campbell's 'Sunshine Patriots'".
    • Reynaldo Anderson, "Afrofuturism 2.0 & the Black Speculative Arts Movement: Notes on a Manifesto", pp 230-238.
    • Kinitra D. Brooks, Alexis McGee, Stephanie Schoellman, "Speculative Sankofarration: Haunting Black Women in Contemporary Horror Fiction".
    • John Jennings, "Scratching at the Dark: A Visual Essay on EthnoGothic".
  • Inke Arns, Fabian Saavedra-Lara (eds.), Afro-Tech, Dortmund: HMKV, Nov 2018, 164 pp. Magazine; documents the exhibition Afro-Tech and the Future of Re-Invention (2017-2018) and the festival Afro-Tech Fest (2017). Excerpt. Handout. [17] [18]
  • DeForrest Brown, Jr., Assembling a Black Counter Culture, Primary Information, 2022, 432 pp. Publisher.
  • Ekow Eshun, In the Black Fantastic, MIT Press, 2022, 304 pp. Publisher.
Bibliographies

Events[edit]


Literature
groups, movements, cultures

Avant-garde and modernist magazines, Artists' publishing, Vorticism, Dada, Zenitism, Estridentismo, Surrealism, Concrete poetry, Zine culture, Afrofuturism, Shadow libraries, Code poetry, Conceptual writing, Alternative literature, Conceptual comics.
See also Artists' cultures.