Afrofuturism

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

• Sun Ra's The Arkestra, started in mid-1950s.
• George Clinton, Mothership Connection, 1975.
• Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Black Ark, studio and label, 1973-78.
• Discography on Afrofuturism.net

Film

• Film/Videography on Afrofuturism.net

Fiction

• Jalada 02: Afrofuture(s), ed. Moses Kilolo, et al., Nairobi: Jalada Africa, 2015. A collection of short stories and poems centred on the genres of Afrofuturism and AfroSF.
• List of literature on Afrofuturism.net

Documentary

• 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

• Afrofuturism listserv, est. Jan 1999, moderated by Alondra Nelson, et al.
• The Afrofuturist Affair, Philadelphia AfroFuturists community.
• Black Quantum Futurism collective.
• Community Futures Lab, Philadelphia, opened Jun 2016 [2]. [3]

Resources

• Afrofuturism.net, ed. Kali Tal. Archived version.
• Afro-Tech and the Future of Re-invention. Alternative Technological Energies and Intelligences in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, research by Inke Arns and Anne Bergner, 2014.
• Webography on Afrofuturism.net

Criticism, reflection, historisation, statements

Kodwo Eshun, More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures In Sonic Fiction, 1998, Log, PDF.

Social Text 71: "Afrofuturism", ed. Alondra Nelson, 2002, Log, PDF.

• Greg Tate, "Yo! Hermeneutics!: Henry Louis Gates, Houston Baker, David Toop", The Wire, London, 1985; repr. in Tate, Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America, New York, 1992, pp 145-158.
  • "Yo! Hermeneutics! Henry Louis Gates, Houston A. Baker & David Toop", in Yo! Hermeneutics!, ed. Diedrich Diederichsen, Berlin: ID-Verlag, 1993, pp 165-176. (German)

• Greg Sinker, "Loving the Alien: In Advance Of The Landing", The Wire 96, London, Feb 1992.

• Diedrich Diederichsen (ed.), Yo! Hermeneutics! Schwarze Kulturkritik Pop/Medien/Feminismus, Berlin: ID, 1993. TOC. (German)

• Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, London: Verso, 1993; Harvard University Press, 1993. [4]

• 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)

• Ian Penman, "Black Secret Tricknology", The Wire 133, London, Mar 1995. Review of Tricky's debut album Maxinquaye.

• Kali Tal, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: African American Critical Theory and Cyberculture", 1996; shortened version as "Behind the Screen: African-American Theory and Computer-Mediated Communication", Wired 4:10, Oct 1996.

• 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, 256 pp. Publisher. (Italian)

• Diedrich Diederichsen (ed.), Loving the Alien. Science Fiction, Diaspora, Multikultur, Berlin: ID, 1998, 224 pp. [7] (German)

• Mark Dery, "Black to the Future: Afro-Futurism 1.0", in Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink, 1999. [8] [9]

• 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.

• Krystian Woznicki, "Afro-Futurismus im Strukturwandel. Zur afro-amerikanischen Sci-Fi-Ikonografie unter den Bedingungen der New Econonmy", Telepolis, 20 Nov 2001. (German)

• Social Text 71: "Afrofuturism", ed. Alondra Nelson, Summer 2002, 146 pp.

• Christian Zemsauer, "The Slave, the Robot and the Alien", Mar 2002. An introduction to Afrofuturism.

• 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)

• Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn and Chicago's Afro-Futurist Underground, 1954-68, ed. Anthony Elms, Chicago: WhiteWalls, 2007, 128 pp.

• Science Fiction Studies 34:2 (102): "Afrofuturism", Jul 2007. [11]

• Adilifu Nama, Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film, 2008.

• D. Scot Miller, "AfroSurreal Generation: Afrosurreal Manifesto", 20 May 2009.

• Adilifu Nama, "Brave Black Worlds: Black Superheroes as Science Fiction Ciphers", African Identities 7(2): "The Black Imagination and Science Fiction", 2009, pp 133-144.

• 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]

• Jared C. Richardson, Br(others) Only: Rashid Johnson, Class, and the Fraternal Orders of Afrofuturism, University of Texas at Austin, 2012, 75 pp. Master's thesis.

• Ytasha L. Womack, Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, Chicago Review Press, 2013, 224 pp. Publisher.

• Dariusz Brzostek, "Afrofuturyzm – od analogowej wyobraźni do cyfrowego oporu", Fragile 2:20, 2013, pp 72-76. (Polish)

• 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)

• Adriano Elia, "The Languages of Afrofuturism", Lingue e Linguaggi 12, 2014, pp 83-96.

• Achille Mbembe, "Afrofuturisme et devenir-nègre du monde", Politique africaine 136:4, 2014, pp 121-133, PDF. (French)

• Anthony Reed, "African Space Programs: Spaces and Times of the Black Fantastic", Souls 16(3-4): "'Transition with a Real Slow Fade': The Life and Work of Richard Iton", 2014, pp 351-371.

• A2 22: "Afrofuturismus", Prague, 29 Oct 2015, PDF. Special issue of the magazine. (Czech)

• Nadine Botha, "We need Afrofuturism more than ever", Dazed, 23 Nov 2015.

• Black Quantum Futurism: Theory & Practice, Vol. 1, ed. Rasheedah Phillips, Philadelphia, PA: AfroFuturist Affair/House of Future Sciences Books, Mar 2015, 84 pp, ARG. Authors. [14]

• Black Quantum Futurism, Space-Time Collapse 1: From the Congo to the Carolinas, eds. Dominique Matti and Rasheedah Phillips, Philadelphia, PA: AfroFuturist Affair/House of Future Sciences Books, 2016, 108 pp. Authors.

• Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, eds. Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, Lexington Books, 2016. [15]

• Namwali Serpell, "Afrofuturism: Everything and Nothing", Public Books, 1 Apr 2016.

• Rasheedah Phillips, "Black Across Time, Space, and Depth", ICA Notes, 6 May 2016.

• Dariusz Brzostek, "Black Science - Black Magic. Czy afrofuturyzm jest narracją poznawczą", Sztuka i dokumentacja 14 (2016). (Polish)

• 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".

• Rasheedah Phillips, "Organize Your Own Temporality: Notes on Self-Determined Temporalities and Radical Futurities in Liberation Movements", in Organize Your Own, Soberscove, 2016.

• Paul Youngquist, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016, 346 pp.

• Ruth La Ferladec, "Afrofuturism: The Next Generation", The New York Times, 12 Dec 2016.

• Alice Inggs, "The Suit Is Mine: Skhothane and the Aesthetic of the African Modern", Critical Arts 31(3): "(Re)Fashioning African and African Diasporic Masculinities", 2017, pp 90-105.

• Tobias Wofford, "Afrofutures: Africa and the Aesthetics of Black Revolution", Third Text 31:5-6, 2017, pp 633-649.

• IDEA 52: "The Meaning of the Impossible", Cluj, 2018, pp 5-31, HTML. Special section of magazine. (Romanian)

• Erik Steinskog, Afrofuturism and Black Sound Studies: Culture, Technology, and Things to Come, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

• 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]

• Pedro J.S. Vieira de Oliveira, "Weaponizing Quietness: Sound Bombs and the Racialization of Noise", Design and Culture, 2019.

• Sonya Linfors, Maryan Abdulkarim, "Afrofuturistic Dreams: Soft Steps Towards Revolution", in Black Box teater, Publikasjon 3, Oslo, 2019.

• Kara Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures, New York: NYU Press, 2019, 288 pp. Publisher.

• Alex Zamalin, Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism, New York: Columbia University Press, 2019, x+182 pp.

• Henriette Gunkel, kara lynch (eds.), We Travel the Space Ways: Black Imagination, Fragments, and Diffractions, Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 300 pp. TOC. Publisher.

• Black Quantum Futurism, Space-Time Collapse Vol II: Community Futurisms, Philadelphia, PA: AfroFuturist Affair/House of Future Sciences Books, Jan 2020, 204 pp. Authors.

• Charles Tonderai Mudede, "Which Angel of Death Appears in Afrofuturist Visions of Hi-Tech Black Societies?", e-flux 106, Feb 2020.

• William Sites, Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism and the City, University of Chicago Press, 2020, 328 pp, PDF, ARG. Publisher.

• Digital Imaginaries: African Positions Beyond the Binary, eds. Richard Rottenburg, Oulimata Gueye, Julien McHardy, Philipp Ziegler for Kër Thiossane, Wits Art Museum, and ZKM | Karlsruhe, Bielefeld: Kerber, Apr 2021, 408 pp. Exhibition. Publisher.
  • Digital Imaginaries. Afrikanische Positionen jenseits des Binären, Bielefeld: Kerber, Apr 2021, 432 pp. Publisher. (German)

• Philip Butler (ed.), Critical Black Futures: Speculative Theories and Explorations, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021, 230 pp, EPUB, ARG. Publisher.

• 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.

• Elizabeth Carmel Hamilton, Charting the Afrofuturist Imaginary in African American Art: The Black Female, Routledge, 2022, 166 pp. Publisher.

• Roy Christopher (ed.), Boogie Down Predictions: Hip-Hop, Time, and Afrofuturism, intro. Ytasha L. Womack, MIT Press, 2022, 352 pp. Publisher.

• Paul Youngquist, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2023, 372 pp, EPUB. Publisher.

Bibliographies

• A list of critical articles about or related to afrofuturism on Afrofuturism.net

Events

• Afro-Futures, seminar, University of Warwick, 1996. Organised by Kodwo Eshun.
• Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic: The State of L3 Pan African Contemporary Arts & Film Collective, exhibition, Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, Jul-Aug 2010. [19]
• Superpower: Africa in Science Fiction, exhibition curated by Nav Haq and Al Cameron at Arnolfini, Bristol, May-Jun 2012.
• The Shadows Took Shape, exhibition, Studio Museum, Harlem, Nov 2013-Mar 2014. Curated by Naima J. Keith and Zoe Whitley. [20]
• From P-Funk & Techno to Afrofuturism: Afrofuturism Now! On Screen, an event at WORM, Rotterdam, 2015. [21]
• Afrofuturism Now! Festival, WORM, Rotterdam, 14-18 Oct 2015. Report.
• Unveiling Visions: The Alchemy of the Black Imagination, exhibition, New York Public Library, Oct 2015-Jan 2016. Brochure.
• Afrofuturism: Imagining the Future of Black Identity, panel discussion, Civic Hall, New York, 3 Dec 2015. Commentary.
• Afrofuturism: A New Dawn, evening, De Balie, Amsterdam, 23 Dec 2016. Interview (NL).
• Afro-Tech and the Future of Re-Invention, exhibition, HMKV, Dortmund, 21 Oct 2017-22 Apr 2018. Curated by Inke Arns (HMKV) and Fabian Saavedra-Lara (Interkultur Ruhr). Works by Sherif Adel, John Akomfrah, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Neïl Beloufa, Frances Bodomo, Drexciya, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Louis Henderson, Jaromil, Wanuri Kahiu, Kapwani Kiwanga, Abu Bakarr Mansaray, Cristina de Middel, Fabrice Monteiro, Wangechi Mutu, The Otolith Group, RAMMELLZEE, Tabita Rezaire, Simon Rittmeier, Soda_Jerk. [22]
• Enter Afrofuturism, concerts, talks, workshop & screenings, Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens, 7-12 Nov 2017. Curated by Voltnoi & Quetempo (DETACH). With Sun Ra Arkestra, Actress, Dopplereffekt, Moor Mother, A Guy Called Gerald, ATH Kids, Nkisi, Black Quantum Futurism, Black Athena, Nathalie Mba Bikoro, Louis Chude-Sokei, Reynaldo Anderson, A Guy Called Gerald, The Otolith Group, Black Athena, Tabita Rezaire, Nkisi, Abdul Qadim Haqq.
• Other Futures festival, Melkweg & Sugarfactory, Amsterdam, 2-4 Feb 2018. Focusing on non-Western science fiction.
• Afrofuturism, exhibition, Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, Apr-Aug 2018. Works by Bob Mũchiri Njenga, Samuel Fosso, Kadara Enyeasi, and Osborne Macharia. Video.
• AfroFutures Festival—Intersections of Futures Thinking & AfroFuturist Visioning, Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, CA, 2 Mar 2019.
• Black Quantum Futurism: Temporal Deprogramming, exhibition, ICA, London, 13-25 Aug 2019.