I was going to create a podcast episode on afrofuturism but I found that this genre/aesthetic/artform can speak for itself so instead I'm going to link all my research sources and then make a pledge to ensure all @FactandScifi eps from now on include black and non-black POC media rep. Afrofuturism, broadly defined, imagines a future, past or present of the African diaspora freed from colonialism (and from white people.) It's not just black characters in science fiction, it centers the black experience. It challenges western, white-centric ideas of sci-fi
Films and educational podcasts about afrofuturism
- Space is the Place by Sun Ra (available on Youtube) - part funk and experimental jazz music performance part scifi imagines a home for black people away from whites (note Sun Ra liberates black people in Oakland very much like Wakandans want to do in the Black Panther movie)
- Learn the history of Afrofuturism in music and its connections to modern day hip-hop including Missy Elliot, Kendrick Lamar and OutKast in the pod Bottom of the Map: Culture in the Cosmos: AfroFuturism, Hip-Hop, and Black Joy
- How did Black Panther (2019) open up Afrofuturism to the world? Listen to this interview with Shawn Taylor from Nerds of Color as he explains Afrofuturism in academia, music, film and seminal books of the genre
- Watch this short film called Robots of Brixton about a riot of underclass robots against their oppressors. This is the first time I can remember seeing robots that don't look like white people
- How is Afrofuturism different from African science fiction? I can't speak to the quality of this podcast overall but this interview with Dr. Moradewun Adejunmobi about Afrofuturism and what it signals about future expectations was fantastic.
- Watch this short film called Afronauts, an alternate history about the first African astronauts during the space race
Afrofuturism novels and anthologies
- Kindred by Octavia Butler
- Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond ed. by Bill Campbell and Edward Austin Hall
- Shuri: The Search for Black Panther
- War Girls by Tochi Onyebuch
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