1st Edition
The Black Imagination, Science Fiction and the Speculative
This book expands the discourse as well as the nature of critical commentary on science fiction, speculative fiction and futurism – literary and cinematic by Black writers. The range of topics include the following: black superheroes; issues and themes in selected works by Octavia Butler; selected work of Nalo Hopkinson; the utopian and dystopian impulse in the work of W.E. B. Du Bois and George Schuyler; Derrick Bell’s Space Traders; the Star Trek Franchise; female protagonists through the lens of race and gender in the Alien and Predator film franchises; science fiction in the Caribbean Diaspora; commentary on select African films regarding near-future narratives; as well as a science fiction/speculative literature writer’s discussion of why she writes and how. This book was published as a special issue of African Identities: An International Journal.
Editorial note: the genre of science fiction and the black imagination Sandra Jackson and Julie Moody-Freeman
1.Brave black worlds: black superheroes as science fiction ciphers Adilifu Nama
2.Arboreal dialogics: an ecocritical exploration of Octavia Butler’s Dawn Andrew Plisner
3.But that’s just mad! Reading the utopian impulse in Dark princess and Black empire Amor Kohli
4.Vanishing bodies: ‘race’ and technology in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight robber Elizabeth Boyle
5.Earthling dreams in black and white: space, representation and US racial politics in
‘The space traders’ Julie Moody-Freeman
6.‘Explorers’ – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Micheal Charles Pounds
7.Terrans, extraterrestrials, warriors and the last (wo)man standing Sandra Jackson
8.Cognition’s warp: African films on near-future risk Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi
9.Organic fantasy Nnedi Okorafor
Biography
Sandra Jackson is a Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at DePaul University.
Julie Moody-Freeman is an Associate Professor of African and Black Diaspora Studies at DePaul University.