Full Description
Challenging mainstream technocultural assumptions of a raceless future, Afrofuturism explores culturally distinct approaches to technology. This special issue addresses the intersection between African diasporic culture and technology through literature, poetry, science fiction and speculative fiction, music, visual art, and the Internet and maintains that racial identity fundamentally influences technocultural practices. The collection includes a reflection on the ideologies of race created by cultural critics in their analyses of change wrought by the information age; an interview with Nalo Hopkinson, the award-winning novelist and author of speculative fiction novels Midnight Robber and Brown Girl in the Ring, who fuses futuristic thinking with Caribbean traditions; an essay on how contemporary R&B music presents African American reflections on the technologies of everyday life; and an article examining early interventions by the black community to carve out a distinct niche in cyberspace. Contributors. Ron Eglash, Anna Everett, Tana Hargest, Nalo Hopkinson, Tracie Morris, Alondra Nelson, Kali Tal, Fatimah Tuggar, Alexander G. Weheliye Alondra Nelson is a Ph.D. candidate in the American Studies Program at New York University and is the Ann Plato Fellow at Trinity College.
She will begin teaching in the African American Studies and Sociology Departments at Yale University in the fall of 2002. Contributors. Ron Eglash, Anna Everett, Tana Hargest, Nalo Hopkinson, Alondra Nelson, Tracie Morris, Kali Tal, Fatimah Tuggar, Alexander G. Weheliye
Contents
Future Texts; An Introduction - Alondra Nelson; Gallery:"The Spinner and the Spindle," "Village Spells," and "In Touch" - Fatima Tuggar; "Feenin": Posthuman Voices in Contemporary Black Popular Music - Alexander Weheliye; Race, Sex and Nerds: from Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters - Ron Eglash; That Just Kills Me: Black Militant Near-Future Fiction - Kali Tal; Unequal Developments: "Afro-Futurism: Dystopic Unity," "Mother Nature," and "Vertical" - Tracie Morris; Making the Impossible Possible: An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson - Alondra Nelson; Gallery: "Eight Frames from Tominex," "Four Frames from the Enforcer," "Four Interface Screens" and "Letter to Shareholders" from Bitter Nigger Inc. - Tana Hargest; The Revolution Will be Digitized: Afrocentricity and the Digital Public Sphere - Anna Everett; Contributors
