The Black Speculative Arts Movement

This creative and courageous book is the flowering of black imagination and exploration into alternatives to the catastrophic realities of present-day black life. It is part of a great tradition of theory and praxis, thought and action rooted in concrete struggles for black freedom and black joy! As America and much of the world moves toward neo-fascism, Afro-futurism becomes more timely and powerful! -- Cornel West, Harvard University Reynaldo Anderson and Clinton R. Fluker have continued a dynamic dance with Afrofuturism, bringing together the giants of the field in a single volume. The authors in this well-anchored volume are the best in the field. Each has made an outstanding contribution to Afrofuturism by rushing quickly into the future. I contend that The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design by virtue of its comprehensive and authorial nature will become the classic in the field. -- Molefi Kete Asante, professor and chair, Department of Africology, Temple University, author of The History of Africa

Reynaldo Anderson is associate professor of communications and chair of the Humanities Department at Harris-Stowe State University. Clinton R. Fluker is assistant director of engagement and scholarship at the Atlanta University Center.

Forward: 25 Years in a 500 Year Long Song Sheree Renee Thomas Introduction: The Year of the Panther Reynaldo Anderson and Clinton Fluker Part I: Theory and Extra-Planetary Reason Chapter One: At the End of Dasein: An Afro-German Voyage into the Future Natasha A. Kelly Chapter Two: Avant-Gardes, Afrofuturism, and Philosophical Readings of Rhythm Iain Campbell Chapter Three: Working on the Other Side of Time: An Interview with Rasheedah Phillips Reynaldo Anderson Chapter Four: We Speak, We Make, We Tinker: Afrofuturism as Applied Digital Humanities Toniesha L. Taylor Chapter Five: Forms of Future/Past: Black Kirby Afrofuturism and the Visual Technologies of Resistance John Jennings and Clinton R. Fluker Part II: Coding Utopia and Dystopia Chapter Six: Everything is real. Its just not as you see it: Imagination, Utopia, and Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. Butlers The Book of Martha Susana M. Morris Chapter Seven: African Futurist Themes and Fantasy in Modern African Speculative Fiction Dike Okoro Chapter Eight: B[l]ack to the Future: Futurism and Blackness in Zone One Souleymane Ba Chapter Nine: Dragons, Vescells, and Writing Afro-Latino Futures: An Interview with Enrique Carrion Stacey Robinson Chapter Ten: The Electric Impulse: The Legba Circuit in Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man Sherese Francis Part III: Blackness and Planetary Praxis Chapter Eleven: Ashes to Ashes: The Second Life of Kiluanji Kia Hendas Afrofuturist Critique Dariel Cobb Chapter Twelve: Metropolis 2.0: Janelle Mones Recycling of Fritz Lang Erik Steinskog Chapter Thirteen: Designing Love: Reimagining Technology and Intimacy Ebony A. Utley Chapter Fourteen: Performing Black Imagination: The Critical Embodiment of Transfuturism Amber Johnson Chapter Fifteen: Fabulous Camps of the Black Fantastic: Sylvester James, Queer Afrofuturism, and Black Vernacular Becomings tobias c. van Veen and Reynaldo Anderson Part IV: Images on the Other Side of Time Chapter Sixteen: Funky Images on the Other Side of Time: Various Artists Wriply Marie Bennet, Tim Fielder, John Jennings, Jessi Jumanji, Amber Johnson, Sheeba Maya, Stacey Robinson, and Quentin VerCetty