AFAM215

Humanities (HU), Domestic Pluralism (DP)

What is a black future? The term "Afrofuturism" has been used to describe the recent cultural creations of black writers and artists who vividly envision futures of and for people of African descent. Afrofuturism, which aesthetic gained momentum in the work of science fiction authors Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, as well as in the jazz and poetry of musician SunRa, and which can be found thriving in works like Black Panther, is the subject of inquiry for this course. This survey is an introduction to the literary works produced within the movement from its modern manifestations to its present-day expansions. In his landmark essay on the topic, Mark Dery asks, "Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces of its history, imagine possible futures?" The wealth of literary and artistic production of works in the aesthetic provides a diverse and emphatic "yes." This course seeks to position Afrofuturism as an alternative means of (re)interpretation, back-talk, and as an avenue for imagining a future in light of (and in spite of) the experiences of the past and present. No prerequisites.