Afrofuturism

by

Daylanne K. English

• LAST REVIEWED: 26 July 2017
• LAST MODIFIED: 24 October 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0004

Introduction

Afrofuturism refers to a flourishing contemporary movement of African American, African, and Black diasporic writers, artists, musicians, and theorists. Afrofuturism comprises cultural production and scholarly thought—literature, visual art, photography, film, multimedia art, performance art, music, and theory—that imagines greater justice and a freer expression of Black subjectivity in the future, or in alternative places, times, or realities. It also offers speculation about a world wherein black people are normative. Afrofuturism can also imagine dystopic worlds to come, with contemporary injustices projected into, and often intensified in, the future. However, Afrofuturist works do not always look to the future but, rather, often unsettle notions of linear time. More broadly defined, Afrofuturism reimagines not only new forms of temporality, but also new Black experiences and identities via science and speculative fiction or other artistic and intellectual means. It often does so by exploring both the potential and the pitfalls of technoculture and posthumanism. Although the movement has certainly exploded in recent years, especially since 2000, its intellectual and aesthetic underpinnings can be traced back to mid- and late-19th century African American novels that imagined alternative realities and communities for Black people in the contexts of enslavement and then racial oppression of the Post-Reconstruction era. Such historic imaginings find their counterpart in current Afrofuturist work that addresses the fallout from the 2016 US presidential election, the COVID-19 pandemic, and global uprisings against police violence and white supremacy. In these contemporary contexts, Afrofuturism offers a robust intellectual, political, and artistic framework for critique and resistance, and for the representation of a more just world, one that centers and values Black people and their well-being.

General Overviews

A number of key works provide effective introductions to Afrofuturism’s tenets, aesthetics, and significance from the movement’s origins on up to its contemporary expressions. Dery 1994 coined the term “Afrofuturism” and offers an early introduction to and definition of the movement. The Afrofuturism special issue of the journal Social Text (Nelson 2002) represents a watershed moment in the development and theorization of Afrofuturism. Together, the essays in the issue represent essential reading on Afrofuturism, covering topics from the late-19th- to early-20th- century antecedents of the movement to the revolutionary possibilities created by an Internet community of color. Akomfrah 1996 likewise offers an indispensable overview of Afrofuturist thought and cultural production, especially music, from the African diaspora. Eshun 2003 offers an important theorization of the complex temporalities of Afrofuturism, with a focus on African and African diasporic artists, musicians, and writers. Womack 2013 provides a more popular and accessible introduction to Afrofuturism. Jackson and Moody-Freeman 2011 is among the most useful collections for providing an overview of the movement; it includes eleven scholarly essays that consider speculative and science fiction and futuristic poetry, film, comics, and television in relation to blackness and race. Anderson and Jones 2015 offers ten wide-ranging scholarly essays that engage multiple disciplines, including visual culture; music; and literary, religious, and spatial studies along with multiple Afrofuturist figures and artworks. Lavender 2019 offers a welcome account of the long genealogy of Afrofuturism, focusing on its literary roots. Dubey 2003, although not specifically about Afrofuturism, nonetheless offers strong analysis of the theoretical significance and political power of science fiction by African American writers. Iton 2008, while also not explicitly about Afrofuturism, establishes strong connections among politics, political activism, and Black popular culture.

• Akomfrah, John, dir. The Last Angel of History. New York: Icarus Films, 1996.

  Uses an impressionistic film style to present Afrofuturist ideas about time travel, computer technology, and alienation. Centers on a character called the “Data Thief.” Includes interviews with a wide range of African diasporic writers, musicians, and theorists, such as Octavia Butler, DJ Spooky, Samuel Delany, George Clinton, Derrick May, and Greg Tate.

• Anderson, Reynaldo, and Charles E. Jones, eds. Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2015.

  This collection offers a fresh assessment of the movement, considering art, literature, film, and music through a variety of disciplines. Introduction describes the development of Afrofuturism and scholarship about it. Essays consider figures such as Janelle Monáe and Wangechi Mutu (see Monáe 2010, cited under Music, and Mutu 2013, cited under Exhibitions) and tropes such as the cyborg. Includes an interview with Nnedi Okorafor (see Fiction: Late Twentieth Century and Twenty-First Century).

• Dery, Mark. “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose.” In Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture. Edited by Mark Dery, 179–222. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994.

  DOI: 10.1215/9780822396765-010

  Coins the term “Afrofuturism.” Documents the movement’s multimedia and interdisciplinary nature and identifies the movement’s central figures and texts as of the mid-1990s. Includes interviews with science fiction writer Samuel Delany, cultural critic and Afrofuturist theorist Greg Tate, and scholar of contemporary Black US culture and popular music Tricia Rose.

• Dubey, Madhu. Signs and Cities: Black Literary Postmodernism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

  DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226167282.001.0001

  Provides strong theorization of postmodern African American literature, focusing on urban settings and representations of print culture. Includes chapters on Afrofuturist writers Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany, framing their work in terms of digital and print texts and the postmodern city.

• Eshun, Kodwo. “Further Considerations of Afrofuturism.” CR: The New Centennial Review 3.2 (2003): 287–302.

  DOI: 10.1353/ncr.2003.0021

  Provides a rich overview of the political, economic, and social contexts for Afrofuturism in a broad Black diasporic context. Argues for Afrofuturism’s representation of the past as a means to develop counter-futures. Includes consideration of writers, visual artists, filmmakers, and theorists.

• Iton, Richard. In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post–Civil Rights Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

  DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195178463.001.0001

  Although not explicitly about Afrofuturism, this book offers a framework for understanding the political possibilities inherent in the movement. Argues for the fusion of politics and Black culture, particularly popular and vernacular culture, in the post–civil rights era. Notes, for example, that significant political debates of the 1970s were articulated in and through R&B music. Challenges Weheliye 2002 (cited under Music and Technology) and others by questioning the efficacy of technological mediation in Black music and other cultural expressions.

• Jackson, Sandra, and Julie E. Moody-Freeman, eds. The Black Imagination: Science Fiction, Futurism and the Speculative. New York: Peter Lang, 2011.

  This essay collection begins with a useful editors’ introduction that gives an overview of Black characters in science fiction and other futurist works. Also offers good working definitions of science fiction and futurism. The essays cover a wide range of media and artists and writers, along with works from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to Walter Mosley’s and Nalo Hopkinson’s science fiction novels to the films of Will Smith.

• Lavender, Isiah, III. Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of the Movement. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2019.

  DOI: 10.26818/9780814214138

  Transhistorical literary survey of Afrofuturism, locating the movement’s roots in texts primarily of the nineteenth century and mid-twentieth century. Argues that writings by Walker, Douglass, Jacobs, Hurston, Wright, John A. Williams, and others, not conventionally considered Afrofuturist, nevertheless evince a “black networked consciousness.” Engages with Nelson 2002.

• Nelson, Alondra, ed. Special Issue: Afrofuturism. Social Text 20.2 (Summer 2002).

  Includes important essays that trace Afrofuturism’s roots in late-19th and early-20th century- African American novels to its manifestations in early-21st-century digital communities and electronically mediated music. Also includes photographs, fiction, and poetry, along with an interview with Afrofuturist author Nalo Hopkinson.

• Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-fi and Fantasy Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

  First book-length treatment of Afrofuturism. Womack begins with a personal narrative of her own encounters and engagement with the imaginative and political possibilities of Afrofuturism. She then offers a broad and accessible overview of Afrofuturism’s history and how it flourishes in a 21st-century multimedia context.