AFROAM 151. Literature & Culture: Black Speculative Futures , 4 credits (AL,DU)
*On-line Only: Register Here
Instructor: Andrew Brooks
From the freedom dreams encoded in spirituals and work songs to Janelle Monáe’s multimedia creations, this course examines how Black creator-activists have used speculative and spiritual practices to resist dehumanization and envision new ways of living, building community, and fighting for liberation. Grounded in the specific historical, cultural, and political moments in which these works emerged, we explore the expansive ways Black artists have imagined liberation and alternative ways of being.
The course begins in the late 18th century, uncovering speculative and spiritual dimensions in spirituals, work songs, and early writings from the era of slavery through emancipation. We trace these imaginative practices through Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, where cultural critiques of white supremacist nostalgia and speculative interrogations of race and history take center stage. Moving into the New Negro movement, we explore its embrace of futurism and cultural identity before transitioning into the radical imaginings of the Black Arts Movement and the speculative explosion of Afrofuturism and the Black Speculative Arts Movement in the late 20th and 21st centuries.
Throughout the course, we consider speculative fiction genres such as science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate histories, alongside spiritual traditions rooted in African diasporic cosmologies and resistance. By examining storytelling, music, and film through themes like utopia/dystopia, the blending of technology and mythology, alternate histories, and the intersections of race, gender, class, and futurity, we investigate how these works critique oppressive systems and imagine just and liberated futures.
This interdisciplinary approach emphasizes how Black creators have reimagined the world and reshaped our understanding of liberation through their artistic, intellectual, and spiritual visions. Possible figures include Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Charles W. Chesnutt, Pauline Hopkins, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, Sun Ra, P-Funk, Gil Scott-Heron, Julie Dash, Drexciya, N.K. Jemisin, P. Djèlí Clark, Jordan Peele, Flying Lotus, Janelle Monáe, among others.