Afro-Futurism Aff/Neg1AC Surveillance is the means through which the expendable objects of anti-black violence are tracked- able to be disposed of at any time. To understand how this racist practice is foundational to America and its supremacy, we first look back in time. History takes us to colonial New York and Black luminosity- the panoptic gaze which keeps black bodies illuminated for not only surveillance but also consumption. It was through the consumption of free Black labor that America’s national identity was built. Black luminosity is not a bill to be repealed or made unconstitutional because to do so would be to make illegal the cultural practices that are America not merely in law but in spirit. Simone Browne (Assistant Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies Department and the Department of Sociology) January 2012 “EVERYBODY'S GOT A LITTLE LIGHT UNDER THE SUN” Cultural Studies, 07/2012, Volume 26, Issue 4 In the three sections below, I offer a discussion of the racial body in colonial New York City done by a tracing of the archive of the technologies of surveillance and slavery. The first section focuses on the technology of printed text, namely runaway notices and identity documents, in the production of The Book of Negroes during the British evacuation of the city. This section draws on archival documents to provide textual links that evidence the accounting of black bodies as intimately tied with the history of surveillance, in particular surveillance of black skin by way of identity documents. In so doing my analysis then raises the problem of my own surveillance practices in reading the archive: by accounting for violence do my reading practices act to re-inscribe violence and a remaking of blackness, and black skin, as objectified? Thus, I am mindful of both Katherine McKittrick’s cautioning that there is a danger of reproducing ‘racial hierarchies that are anchored by our ‘‘watching over’’ and corroborating practices of violent enumeration’ (2010) and Nicole Fleetwood’s urging for the ‘productive possibilities of black subjects to trouble the field of vision’ by virtue of ‘the discourses of captivity and capitalism that frame’ the black body as always already problematic (2011, p. 18). To question acts of watching over and looking back, in the second section I turn to lantern laws in colonial New York City that sought to keep the black body in a state of permanent illumination. I use the term ‘black luminosity’ to refer to a form of boundary maintenance occurring at the site of the racial body, whether by candlelight, flaming torch or the camera flashbulb that documents the ritualized terror of a lynch mob. Black luminosity, then, is an exercise of panoptic power that belongs to ‘the realm of the sun, of never ending light; it is the non-material illumination that falls equally on all those on whom it is exercised’ (Foucault 2003, p. 77). Here boundary maintenance is intricately tied to knowing the black body, subjecting some to a high visibility by way of technologies of seeing that sought to render the subject outside of the category of the human, unvisible. My focus in the second section is the candle lantern and laws regarding its usage that allowed for a scrutinizing surveillance that individuals were at once subjected to, and that produced them as black subject. Following David Marriott in his reading of the spectacle of death that is lynching and its photographic archive, such laws, I suggest, operated ‘through visual terror’ in the management of black mobilities, warning of the potential to reduce one to ‘something that don’t look human’ (2000, p. 9). Or perhaps too human. Rather than looking solely to those moments when blackness is violently illuminated, I highlight certain practices, rituals and acts of freedom and situate these moments as interactions with surveillance systems that are both strategies of coping and of critique. This is to say that ‘ritual heals’ and ‘constitutes the social form in which human beings seek to deal with denial as active agents, rather than as passive victims’ (Sennett 1994, p. 80). With the third section, I consider varied notions of repossession by examining the Board of Inquiry arbitration that began in May 1783 at Fraunces Tavern in New York City between fugitive slaves who sought to be included in The Book of Negroes by exercising mobility rights claims as autonomous subjects and those who sought to reclaim these fugitives as their property. In her discussion of ‘narrative acts’ and the moments of narration through which racialized subjects ‘are brought into being’, (2009, p. 625) Hazel Carby suggests that we must ‘be alert to the occasions when racialized subjects not only step into the recognitions given to them by others but provide intuitions of a future in which relations of subjugation will (could) be transformed’ (p. 627). I am suggesting that The Book of Negroes is one of those occasions that Carby alerts us to. At Fraunces Tavern, the pub turned courtroom, mobility rights were sought through de-commodificatory narrative acts, disputing the claims made on the self as goods to be returned. I conclude this article by turning to a different narrative act, Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes: A Novel (2007), as it extends the racial surveillance practices discussed in this article through its creative remembering of the brutalities of slavery. I begin and end this article with representations of black escape to argue that, in different ways, they allow for a rethinking of the archive of the technologies of slavery and surveillance, in that they disclose how this archive continues to inform our historically present tenets of emancipation. The Book of Negroes lists passengers on board 219 ships that set sail from New York between 23 April 1783 and 30 November 1783. Ships, as Paul Gilroy tells us, ‘were the livings means by which the points within the Atlantic world were joined’ (1993, p. 16). Following this, The Book of Negroes is not only a record of escape on board 219 ships, but it can also be thought of as a record of how the surveillance of black Atlantic mobilities was integral to the formation of the CanadaUS border. If we are to take transatlantic slavery as the antecedent of contemporary surveillance technologies and practices as they concern inventories of ships’ cargo and the making of ‘scaled inequalities’ in the Brookes slave ship schematic (Spillers 1987, p. 72), biometric identification by branding the body with hot irons (Browne 2010), slave markets and auction blocks as exercises of synoptic power where the many watched the few, slave passes and patrols, black codes and fugitive slave notices, it is to the archives, slave narratives and often to black expressive practices and clumsy “admiration”. age and race. “Everyone Watches. surveillance has been woven into the fabric of our lives in ways we can not readily reject . Being watched is not just an activity of Big Brother-style surveillance. 2014 TAM) What the hell is you looking for? Can’t a young man get money anymore? It kind of pains me to call Mason Betha prophetic. and demanding education is a “right”.creative texts that we can look to for moments of refusal and critique. The lack of black participation can be unintentional or intentional. She has been published in dissent. Black women cannot say no. racist condescension and content desperation. Media collects the data of black activity and media production as a weapon. What I am arguing here is that with certain acts of cultural production we can find performances of freedom and suggestions of alternatives to ways of living under a routinized surveillance that was terrifying in its effects. but also fannish adulation and social enmeshment. troublemaker and writer from NYC. More importantly. Combined with historical blindness. Present day surveillance is an abusive dynamic that forces black women to participate in our down destruction. and do not need to be in any way respected or fully informed about how they will be studied or used. or they can’t.com/pieces/everyone-watchesnobody-sees-how-black-women-disrupt-surveillance-theory. Discussions of stolen celebrity selfies often miss the “by force” aspect of the breeches. even on the left. Salon and the blogs as @blackamazon. modern discussion of watching and observing black women needs better historical context. Surveillance is part of the information age. or the stealth of the observance. When I’nasah Crockett points out how black women online have constantly been portrayed as “raving amazons. tracking their online habits. October 6th. Harry 14 (Sydette Harry is a cultural critic. by right or by force. Black luminosity becomes a spectre of colonial America’s cultural practices. Surveillance is based on a presumption of entitlement to access . believes dissecting black women. haunting black women through entitled access to our bodies. but credits Jennifer Lopez and Iggy . the modern surveillance of black women too often results in the same historical abuse and erasure of black women. They either won’t say no. the Harlem native pretty much described the current state of surveillance and tech in America. without black participation. it hinges on the belief that those surveilled will not be able to reject surveillance — either due to the consequences of resisting. consuming illegally obtained images of them. but usually ends in gross appropriation. instead focusing on salacious details. As opting into surveillance becomes increasingly mandatory to participate in societies and platforms. willful erasure or a troublesome combo of all three. As Black women have been historically denied the ability to consent to surveillance. stripped of consent and subjecthood. Especially for black people and doubly so for black women. but 17 years ago when “Looking at Me” hit the Billboard charts.” one of the unspoken through lines is how easily media . When Patricia Garcia says the that the big booty era has finally arrived as a “high fashion” moment. Her next project is a decidedly low/high tech response to media. also grad school. https://modelviewculture. but it has always been part of abusive dynamics. Nobody Sees: How Black Women Disrupt Surveillance Theory” . Hashtags. but is it worth it when even at the pinnacle of your success the only thing made visible is the racism of those observing you?Even more difficult.Azaelea.” The attempt was foiled mostly by how their racist caricatures of black women (much like Stanley’s) were so jarringly incongruent with reality. Writing for Salon.” Suggesting the way to Rihanna’s 2014 moment was paved by Lopez shows a dangerous laziness towards the stated goal of body positivity. However. Crockett. but I would like to expand it to include all forms of using tech to jam surveillance. not just for celebration of her uniquely black body but for her participation in World War II and the civil rights movement. Mann. Similarly. another black woman often sexualized and placed under surveillance. Perhaps we have Jennifer Lopez to thank (or blame?) for sparking the booty movement. and more recently I am convinced they do not actually care to learn. phone taps can all be looked at as ways of using tech to push back against surveillance. street recordings. #Yourslipisshowing in particular was used to fight #4chan surveillance of black women. how do you fight back?Under Surveillance. I pointed out that Media has no idea how to talk about race. it erases the very real abuse that black bodies have suffered for those exact body types. Her surveillance provides little in the way of edification and a lot in codifying uncomfortable catch 22’s for black women and privacy: visibility is part of achievement in media. Her piece ignores multi-year plot developments as well as a wonderful opportunity to discuss Rhimes’ accomplishments as possibly the only non-white-male with multiple. Black women’s responses to abusive surveillance has often been heart-rending accounts of personal trauma and exposure of personal . a pioneer in the field of wearable computing and computation photography. that were surveilled to produce the standard that Garcia hands over to Lopez et. She writes: “Rihanna shows up to the CFDA Awards practically naked with her crack fully on display and walks off with a Fashion Icon Award. al. Unfortunately when covering Black women. framed the concept of wearable cameras functioning as recording data for theuser. That unwillingness create a vacuum of knowledge. terrorizing and sassy. simultaneous network TV hits. Garcia’s “cultural surveillance” ends up being a contextless mess that insults both Rihanna and Baker. as history repeats itself over and over. and a community of black women (myself included) used the hashtag to expose 4chan board members who declared “war” on black feminists by tracking and attempting to infiltrate their “ranks. Stanley’s descriptions of Rhimes and her work are filled with words like “angry.” recalling Crockett’s angry amazons perfectly while perpetuating and prolonging logic that for decades kept Viola Davis from being the leading lady Stanley describes. this inability or unwillingness to learn defaults to common stereotypes at best and complete cultural propaganda at worst. user @sassycrass. Rihanna’s moment was a direct tribute to Josephine Baker. not an outside network. Take Alessandra Stanley’s profile of Shonda Rhimes in the New York Times: a cringe-worthy attempt at “complimenting” Rhimes’ stereotype-breaking television output that instead relies on empty surveillance of black characters while Stanley offers no evidence of having actually watched the shows she cites. Hasan M. Elahi responded to being incorrectly surveilled by making a project of displaying his personal information. Over Exposed Steven Mann’s concept of sousveillance centers on wearing portable cameras and technology to record activity. sousveillance often requires large amounts of disclosure to be effective and ultimately negates privacy even more. Surveillance must be used as sousveillance. but have also been shown to be undefended. once again black women’s trauma is made public with overly specific details on the abuse of his victims. Why must black death be broadcast and consumed to be believe. The police who ultimately ended his life were responding to a report. They watched the world not care. Mann and Elahi – credentialed. What goes unmentioned is that social capital and safety are often key to being able to go public with sousveillance as a strategy.More disturbingly have been the deaths of three black men: Eric Garner. In all three cases there was video /photo evidence of the deaths that circulated the internet. Stacia L. The surveillance video which showed him being shot? Still not enough for indictment. and what is it beyond spectacle if it cannot be used to obtain justice? History Repeating When Janay Rice was assaulted by her husband. Brown offers a beautiful examination of the ramifications of ahistorical surveillance.networks. Crawford’s death is a disturbing illustration of the interplay of surveillance and sousveillance with historical discrimination. little discussion was made of how a culture of intrusion seemed to focus on the abuse of black women as breaking news without asking about breaches of boundaries. with the records generated by the intrusive observation of blackness. and even the more stringent sousveillance to track black women to abuse. Buzzfeed has an article that is a triggering reminder of the murkiness of this dilemma. even AFTER the mother requested it stop. it’s inevitable. used to bolster black testimony. What stuck out immediately was the ease at which the surveillance aspects were skipped over. it became a rallying cry for domestic violence and resulted in job creation for white feminists. exposing trauma and constantly excavating painful historical memory to gain sympathy and respect. Black women must lay themselves bare. when they also target the undefended. Echoing a similar leak of a private moment that targeted the Knowles-Carter family.’ It’s about who is erased and minimized in the process. that he had been observed with a gun. discussing representation as well as more diverse media sources as counter-tactics. a predatory policemen targeted black women. but . Michael Brown and John Crawford III. why should they anticipate consequences now? Predators are often wrongly pictured as targeting the defenseless. While being one of the few places to acknowledge how Daniel Holtzclaw.” Her recommendations are solid but also bring up a very real question: for populations whose fundamental problem under surveillance is the inability to declare privacy and boundaries. all murdered by police. women particularly have historically been able to defend themselves. As Brown points out in response to Garcia’s flippant mess: “It isn’t about who gets credit for popularizing the ‘big booty. well-known professors – have a much easier time of saying they agree to be watched than those on the margins. it also notes how he used surveillance. and in Brown’s case. The problem is not that they can’t fight back. via citizen surveillance.That the same online communities that continually prodded and mocked black women are incubators for sex criminals who expose private pictures of celebrities isn’t shocking.” to invite more observation into one’s life? The response to these articles and continued moments of ahistorical abuse and sometimes outright violence are a version of cultural sousveillance. To emphasize the gravity of his offense. Black people. what kind of solution is being made to expose one’s self “voluntarily. When Janay Rice was assaulted by her husband. But if all you want to do is have space to mind your own business. let alone ubiquitous. or exist without interference. long before cameras were around. Drones become the manufactured disciplinarians of the black female body and a constant reminder of our construction as expendable non-persons. if no one sees you at all? As the future encroaches on us. A time to ask what factors lead to the abuse of women and where it starts — usually with black women expressing feminist or anti-racist ideals — becomes covered in really uncomfortable racist/classist overtones. and shut down conversations about how that issue can be addressed. what does the trauma of the women used in that success matter?Just recently. If what you want is representation as you are. James. 13(Robin Associate Professor of Philosophy @ UNC Charlotte. It’s a cry that does not truly encompass the necessary complexity of the problem in the NFL. namely: “What happens if this happens to a white woman we actually care about?!” Even as women of all colors have been fighting for years to make legislation against revenge porn. Surveillance technology is a dissemination of cultural standards of monitoring. handle your family issues in private. This major step to “address issues” still hinges on making a black woman’s personal affairs heartbreakingly public and assuring that no one who represents her voice — which has asked for very different things than advocacy — will be heard.What We Call Surveillance What we have decided to call surveillance is actually a constant interplay of various forms of monitoring that have existed and focused on black people. “Afrofuturism and Drones”. Our picture of surveillance needs to factor in not just tech developments. destroying conceptions of the benign sovereign and exposing the omnipresence black luminosity. The affirmative first operates in the present.When Laurie Penny and Lola Okolosie claim a victory over racist and sexists online. and specifically black women. sousveillance isn’t an answer… it’s a reminder of defeat. especially towards black culture. Elahi can use the intrusion into his privacy to further his work. The ver y real trauma of women — who even after they were transgressed were asked to answer for it like they had committed the crime — becomes a “gotcha” moment. what do you do when the reality is ignored for the easy win.that their fight and the record of what they were fighting is erased and sanitized for easier consumption. technology expands the reach of Black luminosity. threats to “expose” Emma Watson’s nudes turned out to be a prank to “draw attention” to attacks on feminists. it became a rallying cry for domestic violence and resulted in job creation for white feminists. . even when it leaves you worse than before? What is the solution for being constantly watched. but the cultural standards that have bred surveillance. If they have won already. or give anything at all to the attacked woman. they willfully erase the original problem of targeted women not wanting to be surveilled. as part and parcel in our world. do drones fit in Afrofuturist mythology? In a Cyborgology group-email. intergalactic future. PJ hypothesized that “that the prevalence of drones has made the UFOs unremarkable in many parts of the world.” when mainstream society seems to exist in the “futurepast” imagined by Afrofuturists (as Steven Shaviro has argued). The question is this: If Afrofuturism uses UFO/alien spaceship imagery to describe slavery and middle passage. I said “drones drone by creating a consistent psychological pitch or timbre–terror. of the mainstream industry success of Afrofuturist musicians like Janelle Monae. & Beyonce. but to .http://thesocietypages. It’s a question. Specifically. instead of the myth of the UFO.” Around the same time. Maybe the myth of the UFO speaks to a historically and ideologically specific racial formation (to use Omi & Winant’s term)? African slavery is absolutely essential to modernity. Kanye West.) This is where PJ’s comment is helpful. Lil Wayne. one tied not so much to UFOs and modernity. Now that we neoliberals have reached what Francis Fukuyama famously called “the end of history. for example. so I’m happy to be pushed and challenged here).” Consider the resonance between that idea and Kodwo Eshun’s claim that neoliberal capitalism…mobilizes speculative affect” such that “the affective register of our relation to the future has been shifted from euphoria to fear. how might Afrofuturist mythologies be made compatible with these upgrades? Here’s one potential way critical drone mythology might work (again. Theorist Kodwo Eshun calls this notion of time the “futurepast. for example. Eshun’s concept of futurity sounds a lot like my notion of droning–they’re both attunements to constant.* can. Afrofuturism targets the linear. I argued that “droning” was a specifically neoliberal form of surveillance. accelerationism? Could the myth of the drone. If alien abduction captured something about modernist racial formations based in slavery. is Afrofuturism obsolete? Has it become co-opted? (Think. Afrofuturism is a set of theories and practices that critique and imagine alternatives to Western modernity. and the “future” vis-a-vis which non-Western cultures are the supposedly primitive “past. help thematize contemporary forms of racism and anti-blackness ? If neoliberalism has upgraded racial formations. Last week. how might droning capture something about racial formations based in the war on terror? Drone mythos might help us conceptualize and critique the role of antiblackness in contemporary imperialism. musician Sun Ra treated Ancient Egypt as bothdistant past and alien.”But. say. a hypothesis. which then needs some grounding in empirical evidence. pervasive fear. this is just a hypothesis. or rather. as Nyong’o’s tweets suggest. For example. we . When we Americans think of drones. a state of fear without forseeable end” (emphasis mine). and if so where. that sort of critique might not pack much punch anymore.org/cyborgology/2013/11/01/afrofuturism-and-drones/. What if Afrofuturism needs a new mythology. Tavia Nyong’o’s questions and concerns about the contemporary politics of Afrofuturism appeared in my twitter timeline.” One way Afrofuturists do this is by scrambling linear progressive temporality.” as the culmination of historical development. I’m not citing empirical evidence so much as suggesting a line of inquiry. progressive temporality which posits European/Western civilization as “present reality. November 1. and the UFO myth helps unpack and resist this . 2013 TAM) This post is basically speculative. drones and capitalist realism? How might Afrofuturism adapt itself to respond to. Voting aff is a fissure that breaks from the present and exists in a black future where our survival is possible.” Afrofuturism views enslaved black people as wetware robots avant la lettre . the surveillance state and neoliberal capitalism outsources their crap jobs to them. In what way are people of color the “drones.usually think of them as something that happens in Pakistan.com/2014/08/24/work-inprogress-strategic-disruptions-black-feminism-and-afrofuturism-by-cherie-annturpin/ The beginning of the 21st century marked a shift towards a shaping and attempts at cultivating an aesthetic and critical apparatus to respond to an emerging artistic movement within literature. as expendable instruments.” which is Czech slang for “slave. “un-manned” (that is. it had black people. Or. before capitalism had mechanical robots to do its slave labor. how does droning re-enforce anti-black racism? On the other hand. Cherie Ann Turpin (Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of the District of Columbia) August 2014 “Strategic Disruptions: Black Feminism and Afrofuturism” http://afrofuturismscholar. Drones are robots. especially insofar as droning seems to target non-black people of color? Drones. and visual art called Afrofuturism. How does the expendability of drones relate to the expendability of populations of color? If neoliberal capitalism is fundamentally a “shock doctrine. my partner and I affirm that domestic surveillance against black women should be substantially curtailed.” a practice of creative destruction.” the autonomous. Further. droning practices certainly exist over here –you could think of Stop & Frisk and Stand Your Ground as a method of striking a constant pitch of fear among targeted populations . how does the myth of the drone help us understand how select groups of non-whites are used as instruments to further marginalize even more vulnerable non-white populations?** Thus. as increasingly autonomous machines. especially as we move towards realizing virtual and digitalized forms of cultural expression. if drones themselves. Afrofuturism opens possibilities of developing responses to ideas about where and how people of African descent could position themselves as intricate parts of human collectives and unknown futures. music. or other Middle Eastern locations. subjectivity and taking personal agency to create imagined worlds where Black people are leaders is a strong . However. also speak to one of classical Afrofuturism’s other main myths: the robot as slave/slave as robot. how does anti-black racism facilitate droning. does the idea of the expendable drone help us understand the way specific populations are framed as good candidates for destruction? Or.it presents the black female body for continual surveillance while simultaneously consuming her. Yemen. even more vulnerable populations. lacking moral personhood and/or citizenship) devices that keep neoliberal capitalism chugging along? Think about it: drones are often framed as expendable. The English word “robot” comes from “robota. How might this idea that droning only happens “over there” obscure racist droning “over here”? In other words. are used to destroy other. The paradox of the present is a black hole. identity politics. Alice Walker. art. Barbara Smith’s “call to action” for a Black feminist theory during the 1970s. Michelle Wallace. and beauty free of the pressures of meeting male approval. During the 70s. some Black feminist theorists have attempted to take on this difficult task in order to recover Black womanhood from degradation. fragmented personae. Stereotypes regarding Black women and intellectual abilities continue to be extremely difficult to unravel in the 21st century by Black feminists who seek to build a counter-text to them. the Combahee River Collective. Approaches to Black feminist theory during the 1980s were fraught with debates . Mary Helen Washington. unknown” Smith (1978). theory. Black feminists have persisted in creating fissures in these “bodies” of “knowledge” in order to question and unravel these stereotypes.challenge to the weakened but still existing stereotypes of Black women and men as non-intellectual or limited in technological knowledge. Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Barbara Christian. June Jordan. Black Feminism as a form of literary inquiry. or what became known as “Black Feminist Theory. societal standards. argued for a breaking of racial and gendered silence in understanding Black women writers’ work: “Black women’s existence. Development of Afrofuturism as an aesthetic. performativity. as noted earlier. African-American critical theory provides very sophisticated tools for the analysis of cyberculture. For Smith. Black Feminist Theory Early Approaches Over the course of well over forty years. Valerie Smith. and Hortense Spillers. Black women intellectuals have engaged in theoretical debate and discussion as a means towards building a critical apparatus that would address both aesthetic and political concerns regarding the “place” and “position” of Black women writers. However.” were subject to marginalization in academic discourse. Parallel commentary regarding bodies. artists. In order to understand these discursive tensions permeating critical reception of gender and race in Afrofuturist culture. and aesthetic concerns. characters. Making connections between two flourishing movements is not so much the issue as it is negotiating the discursive tensions with regard to political and aesthetic concerns. Mae Gwendolyn Henderson. invisible. or run-of-the-mill female expectations. Black women struggled to be heard and acknowledged as contributors to literary traditions. 80s and 90s. “Ironically. as well as its role in the development of Afrofuturism as critical theory. in addition to our presence as academics in higher education. Deborah McDowell. and race have continued to impact critical responses to speculative and science fiction coming from Afro-Diasporic writers in the 20th and 21st century. since AfricanAmerican critics have been discussing the problem of multiple identities. while opening possibilities for critical inquiry that would traverse new terrain in Africana women’s speculative/science fiction. Audre Lorde. and as “outsiders. and liminality for more than 100 years” Tal (1996). bell hooks. color-based taxonomies. experience. Toni Cade Bambara.” came into the academic community through the work of Barbara Smith. this essay will discuss the role of critical debates and critical tensions in Black Feminist theory. The results are works that some critics call uncategorizable” Womack (2013). and culture and the brutally complex systems of oppression which shape these in the in `real world’ of white and/or male consciousness beneath consideration. gender. Angela Davis. “Women develop theories. or as a process is fraught with the many of same critical debates and discursive tensions that continue to permeate through Black Feminism with regard to essentialism. Patricia Hill Collins. Evelynn Hammond. 1987). 1987). “ In isolating and affirming the particulars of black female experience they inspired and authorized writers from those cultures to sing in their different voices and to imagine an audience that could hear the song” (McDowell.” and much intellectual energy was put into critiquing “essentialism. heteronormative academy: the Black female body. Christian’s concerns were in part a response to Hazel Carby. suggested a model of black feminist theory. their voices and contributions. in her view. was not some universal code of communication or an essentialist vision of communion between black women (Carby. the importance of increasing . is critical of traditions of Afro-American intellectual thought that have been constructed as paradigmatic of Afro-American history” (Carby. who debated and disagreed with Christian and McDowell’s critique regarding the direction of Black feminism towards a discursive body infused with dense. (2) the discovery that (black) women writers had a literature of their own (previously hidden by patriarchal [and racist] values) and the development of a (black) female aesthetic. But by writing more important thinking exclusively in this language. more practically. Eurocentric language designed to exclude: “For I feel that the new emphasis on literary critical theory is as hegemonic as the world which it attacks” (Christian. male. 1987). paraphrasing Elaine Showalter in her introduction to Reconstructing Womanhood.” Deborah McDowell noted the importance of the work completed and progress made by critics coming out of Black Arts Movement and the Black Feminist Movement to bring Black female writers into the larger academic discourse McDowell (1990). She did “not assume the existence of a tradition or traditions of black women writings and. Carby rejected the notion of shared experience between black women critics and black women writers as ahistorical and essentialist. 1990). Language in black women’s literature.” the focus was lost on actual people of color. we not only speak but to ourselves. in Carby’s view. and (3) a challenge to and rethinking of the conceptual grounds of literary study and an increased concern with theory” Carby (1987). Elizabeth Alexander views the 80-90s struggle for theoretical ground as counterproductive to transformation of academic inquiry and academic space: “As “race” became a “category. indeed. Carby intersected critical and political aspects of reading which serve to modify poststructuralist models of criticism with the intention of moving black feminist criticism directly in the midst of “the race for theory. we also are in danger of not asking those critical questions which our native tongues insist we ask” Christian (1989). Hazel Carby. which would occur in three phases: “(1) the concentration on the misogyny (and racism) of literary practice. must interrogate the sign as “an arena of struggle and a construct between socially organized persons in the process of their interaction [and] as conditioned by the social organization of the participants involved and also by the immediate conditions of their interactions” (Carby. as well as. Carby saw “black feminist” and ‘black woman” as being signs. Barbara Christian warned of the dangers of becoming entangled in “academic language” that that could not only alienate and exclude.regarding politics of language. which in turn unfolded tensions between what some Black feminists saw as essentialism and what other Black feminists saw as articulation of what had been deemed by the hegemony as unspeakable and unacceptable in an overwhelming White. black feminist theory. but miss engaging in crucial inquiries: “Academic language has become the new metaphysic through which we turn leaden idiom into golden discourse. 1987). but in another dimension” Wallace (1990). hooks also saw subjectivity in black women as a process towards political radicalness. “The outsider sees black feminist creativity as a hole from which nothing worthwhile can emerge and in which everything is forced to assume the zero volume of nothingness. 1990). and that black women writers should resist Western notions of subjectivity. Here. the invisibility. whereupon the object… reassumes…all of the properties of visibility and concreteness. Black Feminism and Marginality Politics Other Black feminists furthered the call for theory through series of reshaping and reimagining European theoretical apparatuses. For .” (hooks. who are themselves other to white men (Wallace. which limit the ability to commit to political upheaval the structures which oppress black women (hooks. Black women’s creative works reached back into the broken and silenced past and re-cover and re-claim the repressed words of their ancestors. Space is interrupted. 1990). bell hooks saw aesthetics as a means of inhabiting space or location. Freud/Lacan in order to do what Audre Lorde warned could not be done: use the Master’s Tools to dismantle the Master’s “House. 1990). 1990). a way of looking and becoming (hooks. Derrida. and described the repressed accumulation of black feminist creativity as compressed mass. class and sex” (Wallace. During the early 1990s bell hooks theorized that art created in the margin as radical.as a place of origin for …much of black feminist writing…imposed from without. 1990).” Mary Helen Washington declared that black women “have been hidden artists–creative geniuses…whose creative impulses have been denied and thwarted in a society in which they have been valued only as a source of cheap labor” Washington (1974). to create works of art. Aesthetics were also formed through encouragement of other black women to write and to express themselves artistically. in which “black holes may give access to other dimensions…and object …enters the black hole and is infinitely compressed to zero volume…it passes through to another dimension. borrowing discursive strategies introduced by Bahktin. entity defined by the patriarchal and white world of power and wealth. that results from the intense pressure of race. oppositional aesthetic acts” (hooks. 1990). Wallace attempted to address what Mary O’Connor considered to be “nothingness….” For example. The dialectic of black women’s art is forced into the position of “other” by white women and black men. 1990).their—out—empowered presence on campuses and in other workplaces. “The realities of choice and location are confronted in the gesture of “re-vision. saying that “[i]n this space of collective despair resistance to colonization becomes a vital component to the creativity at risk. Through the margin of resistance black women writers encourage others to write. appropriated and transformed through artistic and literary intervention” hooks (1990). 1990). The trope of the black hole described the dimensions of negation. The extreme reaches are not unimaginable: a gender studies without women.” which could be considered as signified through imposition of “theoretical discourse. “race” studies without black people and other people of color” (McDowell. while speaking of their experiences and beauty.” shaping and determining the response to existing cultural practices and in the capacity to envision new alternative. “African American discourse on aesthetics is not prescriptive…the location of white western culture is only one location of discourse on aesthetics. and to break through the “black hole”. Wallace borrowed Houston Baker’s trope of the black hole. negated from existence in the race and production of theory (Wallace. 1989). 1990). and was in “dialogue with the aspects of “otherness” within the self” (Henderson. `privileged’ by a social positionality that enables them to speak in dialogically racial and gendered voices to the other(s) both within and without” (Henderson. with white women as blacks. Further. power which is used to deconstruct the structures of oppression. Henderson suggested the development of “an enabling critical fiction–that it is black women writers who are the modern-day apostles. but a subject of power. like Barbara Christian. hooks viewed marginality as being more than a site of deprivation. or testimonial and public or competitive discourses…. ” an ability of black women through their location as marginalized to see and speak more than one language as reader Henderson (1989). Contemporary black women writers linked subjectivity with emotional and spiritual health.hooks. in which “voices of the other(s) `encounter one another and coexist in the consciousness of real people”…that speaks to the situation of black women writers in particular. she is a radical subject of resistance. which was in “dialogue with the plural aspects of self that constitute the matrix of black female subjectivity”. hooks warned black feminists regarding slippage between the voice of the oppressed and the voice of oppressor. Henderson’s critical model proposed the existence of heteroglossia in black women’s writing. empowered by experience to speak as poets and prophets in many tongues…. To Henderson. When black women as “other” speaks and writes in resistance.that…. Mae Gwendolyn Henderson referred to this articulation as a sort of “speaking in tongues. critical theory in the dominant hegemony negated the multiplicity of voices of subjectivity within black women’s writing. and with white men as black women” (Henderson. (hooks. Henderson proposed a discursive strategy that “seeks to account for racial difference within gender identity and gender difference within racial identity. with white women as women and with black women as black women….’” (Henderson. she is no longer a silent object of derision or object of degradation. 1989). As a speaking “other” she is not the muted other. Language was “a politicization of memory” which explained the present while articulating the past (hooks.[and]…enter into a competitive discourse with black men as women. 1990). 1990). 1990). although black women’s writing contained radical resistance to racist oppression. This approach represents [her] effort to avoid …. many black female writers limited black women characters’ progress after breaking away from oppression instead of becoming radical subjects of resistance (hooks. ignoring the possibility of commitment to radical politics and the possibility of resisting unity concepts and accepting difference in female experience and in subjectivity itself. Black women writers have possibilities of multiple locations of expression. for her the margin was a position of political possibility and a space of resistance. especially with regard to power relations and domination of the oppressed.enter into testimonial discourse with black men as blacks. 1989)..signify[ing] a deliberate . borrowing from Mikhail Bakhtin’s “notion of dialogism”.the presumed `absolute and selfsufficient’ otherness of the critical stance in order to allow the complex representations of black women writers to steer use away from `a simple and reductive paradigm of otherness. reinforcing dominant feminist thought and essentialist notions of black identity (hooks. 1990). However. and a location of counter-hegemonic discourse which also came from lived experience (hooks. Henderson saw black female creative writers as “enter[ing] simultaneously into familial. 1989). “A radical aesthetic acknowledges that because of changing positions and locations. The latter.” Spillers (2003). and other early Black feminists. Barbara Christian. 1989). rather. “I wish to suggest that the lexical gaps I am describing here are manifest along a range of symbolic behavior in reference to black women and that the absence of sexuality as a structure of distinguishing terms is solidly grounded in the negative aspects of symbol-making. in turn are wed to the abuses and uses of history. who were in a unique position of being the mouthpiece of God. 1990). Michelle Wallace offered the caveat that romanticizing or privileging marginality as a primary theoretical/political strategy would lead to a reaffirmation of the white hegemony through reinforcement of the image of the silent “strong matriarch” who is “already liberated” from her oppression (Wallace. offered a blunt observation that the dilemma faced by Black feminist critics was one that was brought on their dependency on a paradigm that was itself self-evident of a need for them to transcend its limits and traps: “I would like to suggest that it is precisely to the extent that the grounds for their differentiation cannot be maintained that black feminists may make their strongest case for both the continuity and the importance of their critical project.” In other words. Spillers argued that mainstream feminism’s silence towards Black female tended to perpetuate dominant ideological paradigms that continued to perpetuate oppressive impressions of Black female sexuality. the conditions which continue to make an appeal to experience as a logical. there can never be one critical paradigm for evaluating African American art” (hooks. Spillers asserted a need for Black feminists to pursue a discursive strategy to correct “official” histories of Black female sexuality that would reposition us as a disruptive force to counter hegemonic influence: The aim. other critics like Deborah Chay. Still. For hooks. prove to become intellectual traps for Black feminists. and invisible foundation themselves constitute the most powerful argument for the continued need for “black feminist critics” to organize and inventively challenge the apparatus and terms of their representation Chay (1993).intervention by black women writers into the canonic tradition of sacred/literary texts” (Henderson. significant contributions were published by Black feminists who felt the need to address what Hortense J. and how it is perceived. In addition to critiques on the limits of identity-based theory that focused on race and gender. For instance. the strategy of relying on “experience” or “representation” as a theoretical foundation exposed a theoretical flaw that would and did. it would open possibilities of opening inquiry on multiple experiences and voices. She argued that Black women were in a unique position of possibilities as prophets. might be . 1990). whose essay “Rereading Barbara Christian: Black Feminist Criticism and the Category of Experience” constructed a strong theoretical rebuttal of the notion of “experience” or “representation” as theorized by Barbara Smith. That is. though obvious. These and other images could be used by the hegemony to silence the process of resistance (Wallace. appealing. 1990). as with the Hebrew prophets of old. in time. “It seemed to me the evidence was everywhere in American culture that precisely because of their political and economic disadvantages. Conversely. 1990). Spillers and Evelynn Hammonds referred to as “silences” in mainstream feminism with regard to Black female bodies and sexualities. black women were considered to have a peculiar advantage” (Wallace. a strategy of building a critical apparatus that would resist a fixed position or singularity of identity that could be co-opted. Nash’s essay “rethinking intersectionality” criticized intersectionality’s tendency to persist in Black feminism’s theoretical problem of “continuously and strategically jamming the workings of binary thinking” by “continu[ing] in the tradition of black feminism with the addition of a new name for conceptualizing the workings of identity” (Nash. Black Feminism and Intersectionality In the 21st century Black feminism has continued to engage in a series of complex struggles to engage a rapidly changing academic and theoretical landscape challenged by instabilities and uncertainties with regard to political and cultural alliances. intersectionality as a truly useful and progressive theoretical apparatus needed to undergo a critical overhaul that would correct its ambiguity as to how it distinguishes itself from previous versions of Black feminism. hegemony. 2011). For Nash. She suggested an intersectionality strategy that would study “race and gender as co-constitutive processes and as distinctive and historically specific technologies of categorization. For Hammonds. and sexuality. 1994). 2011). has emerged as the primary theoretical tool designed to combat feminist hierarchy. and exclusivity” Nash (2011). breaking this silence was a decisive move that could not be ignored by Black feminists. gender. intersectionality could offer a more robust conception of both identity and oppression” (Nash. “Disavowing the designation of black female sexualities as inherently abnormal. whether it remained a part of Black feminist theory as a revised or emergent version. I suggest. class. She saw Black feminists’ reluctance to pursue a theoretical direction that included discussions on lesbian eros as an exclusionary tactic that exposed a privileging of heterosexual desire. Nash asserted that “[i]n conceiving of privilege and oppression as complex. and simultaneous. 2003). In addition to Spillers’ call to Black feminists.” Hammonds believed such discourse to be crucial to the development of Black feminist criticism that would contend with Black women artists and writers articulating from a previously missed context that needed to be explored in order to address sexual difference and multiplicity. Hammonds also proposed a much more decisive and unequivocal discursive strategy for Black feminists. feminists are called upon to initiate a corrected and revised view of women of color on the frontiers of symbolic action” (Spillers. while acknowledging the material and symbolic effects of the appellation. multi-valent. Jennifer C.” which would in turn allow a much more robust intellectual engagement that would . For some Black women. or whether it served as a critical strategy that completely “departs” from it (Nash. that silence itself suggests that black women do have some degree of agency. disengaging themselves from the limits of a feminism aligned with a singularity of racial identity while remaining committed to dismantling oppressive ideological frameworks entailed developing and encouraging a critical strategy that promised a much more complex engagement: intersectionality. we could begin the project of understanding how differently located black women engage in reclaiming the body and expressing desire (Hammonds. Nash defined intersectionality as “the notion that subjectivity is constituted by mutually reinforcing vectors of race.restated: to restore to women’s historical movement its complexity of issues and supply the right verb to the subject searching for it. implies that another discourse—other than silence—can be produced Hammonds (1994). 2011). A focus on black lesbian sexualities. as well as the presence of the excluded lesbian text: “Since silence about sexuality is being produced by black women and black feminist theorists. Nash asserts what I would consider a theoretical bridge that invites an Afrofuturist vision of Black feminism when she theorizes that “love-politics practitioners dream of a yet unwritten future. especially for those who seek to connect Black feminism with Afrofuturism. Black lesbian writers included. as well as new permutations of expression. Afrofuturists engage in a recovery and retelling of the presence of people of African descent as contributors to cultural production and articulation. Rather than following dominant cultural assumptions of Africana culture as being in opposition to a digitalized future or present. 2011). by a set of subjects who work on/against themselves to work for each other” (Nash. but also inventors and drivers. music. By 2011. and Post-Intersectionality’” takes on Audre Lorde’s theory of the erotic in her (1983) essay “Uses of the Erotic” and remixes it with affective theory. Afrofuturism is also a . but railroads. Akpem invokes an Orisha who symbolizes humanity’s changing relationship with those elements that provide us with the tools for innovation. 2011). Bridge Towards Afrofuturism The rise of Afrofuturism in the 21st century. fusing metal to metal. invention. describes Afrofuturism as “an exploration and methodology of liberation. discussing the 2011 Afrofuturism Conference in Chicago Art Magazine. 2011). locomotives. fantasy. His “children” are not just warriors.result in “insights that far exceed imagining race and gender as inextricably bound up” (Nash. and ships. as well as visual art. and technological infusion into Afro-Diasporic cultures. D. and speculative fiction. “Afrofuturism has evolved into a coherent mode not only aesthetically but also in terms of its political mission. Nash takes her call to reconsider intersectional analysis in a critical and political direction that seems to anticipate and invite what I would refer to as a theoretical “bridge” for those who would seek to engage in Black feminism beyond identity traps. Her essay “Practicing Love: ‘Black Feminism. vibrancy— of multiple black feminist political traditions” through “a radical conception of the public sphere” and through “a new relationship to temporality generally. Jewelle Gomez refers to “speculative fiction. artistically. akin to the Yoruba god Ogun. allowing us to consider all aspects of ourselves. it is important that a diverse range of writers.” Afrofuturists invoke the past as a means towards imagining a future that is not only inclusive of us as participants but as shapers of worlds that embrace new permutations of existence . Ogun. Like Black Feminists. the God of iron.” as new landscapes and life experience are imagined beyond the limits of the so-called real: “[s]peculative fiction is a way of expanding our ideas of what human nature really is . and to futurity” (Nash. cars. and advancement. a name first articulated by Greg Tate in the mid 1990s. In its broadest dimensions Afrofuturism is an extension of the historical recovery projects that black Atlantic intellectuals have engaged in for well over two hundred years” (Sdonline). shapes not just spears and guns. Denenge Akpem. simultaneously both a location and a journey…[w]e are alchemists in this city of steel.” As “alchemists. can be considered as an aesthetic and critical process existing at the side of and through the development of Black feminism and its critical companion intersectionality. “Afrofuturism as a movement itself may be the first in which black women creators are credited for the power of their imaginations and are equally represented as the face of the future and the shapers of the future” (Womack. LovePolitics. 2012). they imagine a world ordered by love. proposing a Black feminist love politics that would expose “the existence—indeed. participate in this expansion” Gomez (1991). It is inclusive of science fiction. by a radical embrace of difference. that confirms the novel status of the virtual self. and the aftermath provide rich. or of a past existence. the technologically enabled future is by its very nature unmoored from the past and from people of color. color-blind mythotopias of cybertheory and commercial advertising have become the unacknowledged frames of reference for understanding race in the digital age. speculation in fiction offers Afrofuturist writers a means towards “shaking up” the hegemony: “Science fiction and fantasy are already about subverting paradigms. fertile ground upon which to imagine supernatural or preternatural figures who exist in a world already rife with evils of racism. their creations and theories themselves emerge from a space that renders such limitations moot ” (Womack. It’s something I love about them” Hopkinson (2010). it is not so much about being included in someone else’s cultural and technological conversation.” Reed’s depiction of “technology” serves as a subversion of the dominant tropes by revising and reimagining stories of both our past and our future from a vantage point of one who is able to see our presence as both inventors and users of technology. in that he also sees Afrofuturism as interrupting the old version of the . “ While Afrofuturist women are obviously shaped by modern gender issues. For Black feminists. Nelson sees writers like Ishmael Reed as an example of a futurist vision that counters the hegemony’s script: “Like [Ishmael Reed’s] critique of the dominant mythos of “Western civ. Neocritical narratives suggest that it is primitiveness or outmodedness. Ishmael Reed has supplied a paradigm for an African diasporic technoculture (Nelson. and to what ends. as well as a past with a very limited or dim view of racial others. Kodwo Eshun’s theorization moves in a direction similar to that of Nelson’s trajectory. the African-American vampire reminds us that the American gothic travels from elsewhere and is burdened by the horror of racial history” Goddu (1999). She asserts that “[f]rom Morrison’s vampiric Beloved. 2012). subjugation. such a process surpasses socio-cultural codes demanding containment. Teresa Goddu asserts that African American writers who have ventured into speculative fiction featuring horror or the fantastic engage in a counter-text or countertheoretical mode of writing about the past. the obsolescence of something or someone else. to Eddie Murphy’s Vampire in Brooklyn (1995). Racialized tropes that dominate the “public sphere” have been flooded with the notion that a digitalized or highly technological space cannot exist or flourish in a future populated with people of color because they/we are outdated. the cutting-edge product. With his innovative novel as an exemplar. Jim Crow.” his anachronistic use of technology in Mumbo Jumbo begs the question of what tools are valued by whom.reclaiming of space previously assumed to be alien to us. as it is a reclaiming of authority to speak as creators and inventors.” a special edition of Social Text (2002): The racialized digital divide narrative that circulates in the public sphere and the bodiless. 2002). and dehumanization. Cultural expressions coming from such ideological paradigms assume a future free of those populations that signify a racialized limitation. which replays Dracula’s landing in England as the entrance into New York harbor of a crumbling Caribbean slave ship populated with corpses. who sucks the past out of Sethe. In these frameworks. or the high-tech society Nelson (2002). where the “horror” of the slave institution. As Nalo Hopkinson notes with a certain joy. This process intervenes and interrupts what Alondra Nelson refers to as “the racialized digital divide narrative” in a collection of essays on Afrofuturism called “Future Texts. 2010). Gray asserts that “Afrofuturists claim that blacks scattered across the Atlantic world are aliens in an alien land. present. Octavia E. without a doubt. has largely been (mis)understood as a genre written only by whites (mostly men) about whites (again. Tananarive Due. fantasy. which is . science fiction. or even fact. No. where the liminal could produce innovative modes of fashioning the African diasporic self: “It is possible to rebuild old and make anew different diasporic connections. ENCHANTMENT (FALL/WINTER 2012). and others inspire this movement in such a way that encourages an imagined existence in the African Diaspora beyond colonized borders and the legacy and terror of slavery and its aftermath. as well as to imagine possibilities for inhabiting the spaces and identities about which Sun Ra wrote” Gray (2005). Afrofuturism and Black feminism are both vital critical apparatus vehicles for Afro-Diasporic women and men who seek to enter and disrupt an otherwise homogenous ideological framework. identity politics. Gray contends this movement as a significant step towards liberation. Linking Afrofuturist fiction to Afrofuturist music as similar movements away from these limits. For novelist Nalo Hopkinson. 40. ever on the lookout for clues and resources that point the way out of alien nations and conditions of bondage” (Gray. Afrofuturism positions the master narrative about the past. 2003). Lisa Yaszek. Dery coined the term "Afrofuturism" in 1994 to "describe African American cultures . Steven Barnes. Butler. and futurist fiction. horror. Butler's "Fledgling"” Women's Studies Quarterly. among others. pp. Samuel Delaney.6 My use of the term "Afrofuturism" is particularly informed by Afrofuturist scholars Mark Dery. mostly men). and Nalo Hopkinson. Afrofuturist writers like Octavia Butler. However. Further.story of the future Eshun (2003). 2005). the speculative possesses a political vehicle that allows writers to explore racial and social class performativity: “So one might say that. that is. or what we have understood to be history. Affirmation of our historical counter-future is a gesture of defiance that heals and creates new growth and new life via transgressive epistemologies Susana Morris (Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Auburn University) Fall/Winter 2012 “Black Girls Are from the Future: Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. Alondra Nelson. 146-166 Speculative fiction. one of the things that fantasy and science fiction do is to use myth-making to examine and explore socioeconomically configured ethnoracial power imbalances” (Hopkinson. Vol. Afrofuturism is a process or performative that disrupts and erupts commonly understood sequential order of things. and future into one of instability and uncertainty. Put another way. by the end of the twentieth century black writers such as Samuel Delaney. 3/4. and Kodwo Eshun. a critical and political strategy that can align and inform with that of a Black feminist process that seeks to develop a discursive strategy that complicates and disrupts those narratives and myths that depend on a singularity of timelines or more importantly. reflected a tradition of black speculative fiction known as Afrofu turism. at a very deep level. According to Herman Gray. Eshun views Afrofuturism as an emergence of “temporal complications and episodes that disturb the linear time of progress” which “adjust the temporal logics that condemned the black subjects to prehistory” (Eshun. that "Afrofuturism may be characterized as a program for recovering the histories of counter-futures created in a century hostile to Afrodiasporic projection and as a space within which the critical work of manufacturing tools capable of intervention within the current political dispensation may be undertaken" (301). Furthermore. be called Afro-Futurism" (8). Yaszek. the virtual. These works represent new directions in the study of African diaspora culture that are grounded in the histories of black com munities. In doing so.. but in "recovering the histories of counter-futures" Afrofuturism insists that blacks fundamentally are the future and that Afrodiasporic cultural practices are vital to imagining the continuance of human society. Likewise. and provides a vehicle for expressing in public a consciousness that quite often already exists" (2000. "Black feminist thought affirms. rearticulates. they expand our sense of the possible and contribute to the ongoing development of science fiction itself" (2006).7 In addition to Dery's definition. as Eshun contends. I argue that it is critical to understand these epistemologies not only as related but as. Put another way. rather than seeking to sever all connections to them" (2002. the proleptic. might. Dery s portmanteau of "afro" and "futurism" denotes the important connection between race and futurist fiction. 293). Afrofuturism is an epistemology that both examines the current problems faced by blacks and people of color more generally and critiques interpretations of the past and the future.. African-American signification that appropriates images of tech nology and a prosthetically enhanced future . 9). for want of a bet ter term. Black feminist theorist Patricia Hill Collins claims. My use of Afrofuturism is also informed by Kodwo Eshun's asser tion that Afrofuturism is "concerned with the possibilities for interven tion within the dimension of the predictive . Because much of Afrofuturism's transgressive politics align with the fundamental tenets of black feminist thought. the envisioned.appropriation of technology and SF imagery" (2008. knowledge. as opposed to being harbingers of social chaos and collapse. Thus. Nelson contends that Afrofuturism forwards "takes on digital culture that do not fall into the trap of the neocritics or the futurists of one hundred years past. contemporary Afrofuturists assume that in the future race will continue to matter to individuals and entire civilizations alike . Moreover. the anticipatory and the future conditional" (2003. so does black feminist thought contend that black peoples experience. Dery. Afrofuturist scholar Lisa Yaszek suggests. not only does Afrofuturism posit that blacks will exist in the future. 32). Alondra Nelson's groundbreaking work— including editing the special issue of Social Text devoted to Afrofuturism and founding the Afrofuturism Listserv and website—has been vital to the development of Afrofuturism criticism and scholarship. 6). a circumstance that tends to go unacknowledged in mainstream speculative fiction. "While early Afrofuturists are concerned primarily with the question of whether or not there will be any future whatsoever for people of color. Nelson. it is important to note. He further notes that "speculative fiction that treats African-American concerns in the context of twentieth-century technoculture and. Ulti mately. just as . more generally. and culture are vitally important. in conversation with one another and potentially even symbiotic. in fact. and Eshun illuminate that one of Afrofuturism's foremost guiding tenets is the centrality of African diasporic histories and practices in sustaining progressive visions of the future. the projected. Just as Afrofuturism underscores the centrality of blacks to futurist knowledge and cultural production and resistance to tyranny. 135). gender. this is a particularly significant project. This movement toward a liberated voice. of 'talking back. Butlers rhetorical questions and subsequent answers reject the notion that speculative fiction is a "whites only" enterprise. 9). Butler s work is Afrofuturist feminism in several ways.45). that is the expression of our movement from object to subject —the liberated voice" (1989. her works of speculative fiction not only adhere to the tenets of Afrofuturism but also are selfconsciously interested in the con nections between race. as hooks suggests. Butlers writing consistently advocates transgressing repressive social . off the narrow. as Marilyn Mehaffy and AnaLouise Keating note. "Octavia Butler s work is thematically preoccupied with the potentiality of genetically altered bodies—hybrid multispecies and multi ethnic subjectivities—for revising contemporary nationalist. Butlers emphasis on the transformative potential of speculative fiction underscores her Afrofuturist work as being defined by a feminist sensibility. or social organization and political direction? At its best. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track. doing. She writes: What good is any form of literature to Black people? What good is sci ence fictions thinking about the present. feminist practices born of or from across the Afrodiaspora are key to a pro gressive future. "Moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed. for black people. Also. racist.' that is no mere gesture of empty words. And what good is all this to Black people? (2005b. methodologies that would incite a future quite different from the hegemony of present structures. that makes new life and new growth possible. Butlers fiction is also fundamentally interested in critiquing conventional systems of power and dominance and offering futurist solutions based on cooperation and egalitarian ethics. It is that act of speech. and homophobic attitudes" (2001. Her texts are committed to portraying compli cated (and sometimes vexed) histories of people of color and visions of the future with people of color at the center. with a particular emphasis on women of color. I argue that recognizing Afrofuturist feminism offers a critical epistemology that illuminates the working of black speculative fiction in vital ways . Afrofuturist feminism is a reflection of the shared central tenets of Afrofuturism and black feminist thought and reflects a literary tradition in which people of African descent and transgressive. for as bell hooks declares. Indeed. liberation is cast in terms of coalition and power sharing. That is. Thus. the future. and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of think ing and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology. and ability that are at the core of black feminist thought. Ultimately. thinking—whoever "everyone" happens to be this year. and those who stand and struggle side by side a gesture of defiance that heals." Butler asserts that speculative fiction has the potential to catalyze progressive political change and that. sexist. arguing instead that the genre can incite d for a variety of people . the colonized. sexuality. science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. so does black feminist thought seek to uncouple dominance from power as blacks assert their agency.Afrofuturism seeks to liberate the possibilities that open up when blackness is linked to futurity. narrow footpath of what "everyone" is saying. the exploited. Octavia Butler is certainly among the authors whose works exemplify Afrofuturist feminism. is not about simply replacing the dom inant voice with the voice of the marginalized. In her essay "Positive Obsession. Thus. rather. I want to consider the synthesis of Afrofuturism and black feminist thought as Afrofuturist feminism. They have seductive powers of persuasion that they largely use for good. Butlers Afrofuturist feminism radically challenges these tenets. Butlers vampires are. As Kimberly Nichelle Brown argues. nevertheless. WileyOnline Black women's resistance efforts are a treasure trove of contemporary historical inquiry. Volume 23. "Contemporary African American female writing is a product of choice. homophobia. rather than solely a reaction to victimization" (2010. Ph. not evil. more commonly referred to as racism.D in American Studies from Yale) 2011 “This Safer Space: Janelle Monáe's “Cold War”” Journal of Popular Music Studies. they break from many of the traditional or con ventionally popular tropes. while contemporary vampires (and other principle figures and tropes of speculative fiction) are often illustrated as a way to crystallize and affirm whiteness and Western values. it does not resort to simply offering up Utopias. enchanted because of the power that they wield. Black feminist performances rebuke technologies of silencing and create the conditions for political mobilization through not only a challenging of contemporary surveillance practices that enable black fugitivity Shana Redmond (Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. Some of them are "daywalkers " or. The interdisciplinary methods that must be used to shed light on their acts can only begin a discussion. however.norms and rejecting heteropatriarchy. of agency. as we follow the (non)disciplin(ed/ary) women themselves who devised fantastic responses to what Stuart Hall has named the “fatal coupling of power and difference” (17). 64). not a supernatural force. enchant ing beings that are both vulnerable to the constraints of racism. I am not arguing that Fledgling is (simply) a reac tionary text. Butler s visions of the future are often ambivalent ones that reveal an ongoing struggle for peace and justice. In other words. That is not to say that Butler s Afrofuturistic vampires are not enchanted or enchanting. I see the novel participating in a tradition of feminist resistance in literature that also taps into the potential (albeit sometimes unrealized) that speculative fiction has to interrogate and challenge normative ideologies and practice. sexism. She (re)configures vampires as power ful beings not outside of the history of racism. while centering (or creating) a variety of experiences from across the Afrodiaspora. despite their various flaws and vul nerabilities and their ability to radically alter their surroundings and chal lenge normative notions of how to be. They have preternatural strength but they are not invincible. can move about in the sun. To that end. Nevertheless. arguing that they “join forces not only as petitioners to the state in the name of injuries sustained but also—and more provocatively—as petitioners to . Nonetheless. while Butler's Afrofuturist work underscores a commitment to an equitable vision of society. These vampires are a biological species. but as powerful. They live in nonnormative groups with or among human beings and are (generally) not antagonistic to humans. Ruth Wilson Gilmore documents the responses of women environmental activists to this coupling. and ableism (and their attendant violence) and committed to creating futures for them and those they love that reject these ways of knowing. Issue 4 December 2011 Pages 393–411. Although not magical creatures. in other words. The video for her single. Daphne Brooks argues that black women “might put their own figures to work for their own aesthetic and political uses and ‘imagine their own bodies’. scaffolds much of the efforts of black women to construct alternative worldviews during the twentieth century. Post-Berlin Wall.” generates a unique alchemy of (re)presentation. access to community or public space. which often takes the form of a tuxedo. below. Georgia.1 The lived experiences of and narratives by the African-descended are often replayed and reimagined in and through performance. and black women in particular have a tradition of representing and resisting the conditions of their lives through creative uses of the black body.2 Wondaland/Bad Boy recording artist Janelle Monáe offers a twenty-first century version of this practice as she uses her body to critique and to resituate history. black women's performance traditions have centralized the body as evidence and epistemology. especially white supremacist violence. in which black women performers and artists of the early twentieth century “combined intense intimacy and unbrookable distance [with]… the ability to record what one saw or felt from above. and performance. and safety from physical and psychic assault.communities of similar people in the name of reconstructing space so that concepts of ‘safety’ and ‘health’ cannot be realized by razor-wire fences and magic bullet cures” (15). and in so doing. “Cold War.” thereby “invent[ing] ways to maintain the integrity of black female bodies as sites of intellectual knowledge. The Cold War. Although she eschews color in her performance wardrobe. inside/outside. which roughly spanned the period between the frayed ends of World War II in 1945 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Monáe's most prominent canvas is her body. philosophical vision. saw the rise of a second Red Scare under McCarthyism (1947–1957) as well as an intense moment of (inter)national suppression of dissent in tandem with the consolidation of an organized black political public through a broad civil rights movement. this moment has been imagined by black artists as a fruitful signifying site through which to investigate and rebuke the technologies of silencing that were developed and expanded by formal political and cultural actors during the long Cold War period. Monáe adds a postmodern edge to the modern performance traditions described by Jayna Brown. This is her “uniform.” as she describes it. Kansas. positionality. and aesthetic worth” (8). inside or outside” (228). This uniform refuses periodization as it incorporates the high collars and puffed shoulders of Victorian women's wear with the saddle shoes and mod. yet it clearly reflects the demarcations of her own sociopolitical investments.3 The stark simplicity of Monáe's wardrobe serves as a foil for a complicated gender performance. In this way. Monáe describes her music as . thereby demonstrating Monáe's Afro-materialist ability to blur the aesthetic conventions of history and dismiss the transhistorical expectations of the female body by commenting on multiple past moments through one ensemble. Self-described as a visual artist. She has garnered significant attention for her black and white wardrobe. presenting an androgynous aesthetic even while the high contrast color-blocking represents her belief that “there's no gray area with me” (Nylon Magazine TV). including the identities produced from and within it. slim-cut slacks of the 1950s. puts under stress the dichotomies of black/white. past/present. The themes of free speech. one that she proudly wears in solidarity with the working classes she was born into in Kansas City. and alongside whom she now labors from her base in Atlanta. and practice of the Cold War. formation. in their bodies. geography. This history is further disrupted by examinations of the contemporaneous struggles waged by the African-descended over the meaning.colorful.” and attempts to develop a more comprehensive experience for the viewer/listener. this focus compels her to contend with historical forces within her layered productions. she highlights the tenuous relationship between national discourses of freedom and their everyday practice. in the process allowing those who watch that battle to struggle alongside her. in their homes. in urban/rural centers [sic]. one that engages on multiple sensory levels and that connects the mind to the body (NPR). however.5 These omissions occlude the varying levels of national (dis)identification that made the protracted engagement of the Cold War what it was: a multiply situated contest of wills and political maneuvering that was not brought to one final conclusion. in her screening . This repositioning of history is not a dismissal.” which she describes as “one of my most intimate releases to date” (Neon Limelight). but that led to numerous projects and ends. the “Double V” campaign of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the high profile performances by artist-activist Paul Robeson after his 1950 passport revocation for suspicion of communist activity continue to demonstrate the exclusions within the Cold War narrative and the ways in which the national fears that characterized it make peripheral or dismiss other contests waged on a nonnational scale. Within “Cold War.” Monáe uses her own hypervisibility to complicate that period and its aims by situating it as an ongoing phenomenon. and she demonstrates this in her borrowing from James Brown's footwork. Through this process. including foreclosures of international diplomacy. She constructs what she calls an “emotion picture for the mind. At stake within this song—as a sound and sight production—is the reconfiguration and substantiation of the emotional and bodily planes of existence for marginalized and alienated groups. making an explicit connection between sight and sound within her work. and the increased local surveillance and incarceration of activists on the Left. entitled “Cold War. Monáe is respectful of and inspired by the past. Monáe's employment of the Cold War as both metaphor and subject disrupts the time. inducing a sense of identification that is based in social movement techniques as well as in the “freedom dreams” discussed by historian Robin Kelley—those maneuvers within the black radical tradition that recover historical methods to generate and mobilize futures of alternative possibilities. the manufacture of the “Third World” through the consolidation of world economic and cultural divisions. Monáe's use of the Cold War as a framework for contemporary conditions of existence acknowledges the ways in which state powers continue to employ scale to enact competing world visions. Her explicit and rapt attention to the mind of her audience is one of her grand interventions within the pop music realm. Monáe enters into the genealogy of what black feminist geographer Katherine McKittrick delineates as “the place of black women in relation to various scales: in their minds. and in the nation” (2000a: 126). which fuses social and cultural movements. in the process.4 Surrealism is one such maneuver Monáe employs in her aesthetic choices and in her insistence on the mind as a site of struggle and elevation. Monáe's invention and use of scale is highlighted in the second video release from her album The ArchAndroid. and ideology that undergirds it as a hermetically sealed period defined by the contest among state actors over capitalism versus communism. Her “Cold War” evocations are offered primarily in present-tense statements and questions that reshape historical inquiry by demanding a collective engagement with the Cold War as a frame for the quotidian brutalities of difference. and she turns to profile where she squints.” yet. As she begins her voiceover her eyes widen.’ Take 1. “It's a cold war.” She returns from the title screen bare and unaccessorized. ‘Cold War. and even politically generated deportation. in this black box. blacknesses. “tended towards segregation. she uses this unarticulated space to expose the myth of the mundane through evocations of her reality (Bradby). Monáe takes advantage of the tight framing of the camera by employing striking affective gestures. In his work on James Baldwin's 1956 novel. and an abstracted “‘nowhere’ setting. unlike these videos. Douglas Field argues that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's scrutiny of Baldwin “is indicative of the ways in which . Here she uses our gaze to establish both the relation and the difference between her environment and her body. according to Smith. but multiple.” including “social isolation. she articulates a distinct distance from this past by invoking it and then deftly outmaneuvering it by constantly challenging the narratives that fossilize that past. The scene for her “Cold War” is a black box. Both phases. do you know what you’re fighting for?” disrupts the historical narrative of the Cold War by announcing its multiplication across time and space (“a cold war”). the “political demonology” of the Cold War was reliant on two phases of US political displacement: the first based on race and the second on ethnicity and vocation. She looks back and forth and begins to remove her robe as the screen goes pitch black. for the first time in her “emotion picture” archive she completely abandons her retro uniform. which asks.” Like the dance music videos of the 1990s. However. Monáe's picture is not “outside of and beyond mundane social relations”—in fact.6 As Geoffrey Smith argues. stripping her body of the historical fixity that she also debunks within her lyrics. The perpetual battle of belonging and accountability that she references here remaps the Cold War terrain and its victims through the insertion of her body as palimpsest. Giovanni's Room.” She returns to face us and inhales. She additionally dismisses the sectarianism of the Cold War (Do you know who you’re fighting for?) and replaces it with a call to a cause (“[D]o you know what you’re fighting for?”). setting the tone for a video that uses both visual and musical cues to heighten the crises that it draws upon. offering an incisive critique of binaries and uncritical identity consolidation through the introduction of not one. offering her opening line: “So you think I’m alone?” This question is haunted by the histories it considers. announcing the reason that we are all here: “Janelle Monáe. Her refrain. We look at Monáe head on and seem to catch her off guard as she speaks with another off-camera entity when we arrive at her scene. as much as it is knowing. this black box offers a “lack of perspective [that] is playfully futuristic. In “Cold War.of civil rights iconography during her live shows. and in her use of Jimi Hendrix's “Purple Haze” to introduce her entrance onto the stage.” Monáe is able to perform time travel through the unique aesthetics and positioning of her body. which represents both a creative play on the fallout shelters that pervaded civil defense culture during the Cold War.” These sociopolitical prohibitions set the stage for an early Cold War period that emphasized differentiation and containment. letting us know that she has vision too—a vision described by critic Eric Harvey as “not remotely sexual. the only color contrast is Monáe's skin. She begins with the visual. medical testing for exclusion. at the moment of revealing. This radical act of self-exposure spurns the longstanding surveillance practices of the United States and offers an alternative to the subterfuge used by oppressed peoples. “If you want to be free / below the ground's the only place to be /’cause in this life / you spend time running from depravity. thus “creat[ing] the appearance of openness and disclosure but actually shield[ing] the truth of their inner lives” (912). Her second verse. unlike much of the disaster and tourist photography of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Monáe's questions to us throughout the song are met with definitive statements as she narrates a story of dispossession and alienation. Through this effort she becomes the subject through which the forces under consideration are elucidated. Monáe's spatial realignments signal a powerful departure from conventional narratives of black suffering. through her. and alongside a diverse public.” The federal government's rabid maintenance of Jim Crow in the American South. and the threats thereof. Monáe signifies on this practice of collectivity through her reconstruction of a Cold War history that “brings wings to the weak. “I was made to believe there's something wrong with me / And it hurts my heart. an entire field of play and performative engagement that traverses period. a shelter.government organizations during the Cold War scrutinized American citizens (both home and abroad) for evidence of subversive political activity to maintain rigid distinctions between an identifiable Self and Other. Her black box setting may lead us to believe that she is in fact alone until we remember that she is in dialogue with us—another character in her production. These refusals produced a “self-imposed . While these exclusions shaped the formal political opportunities for people of color. signaling her investment in using her own “Cold War” for new ends: it is no longer a contained project (war) or a historical object (music video) but it is. and shaking her head and hands in acknowledgement of the emotions that originally inspired the song's composition and that are now replayed in the act of performance. they also fostered alternative political acts and solidarities that challenged. missing the lines of her playback. and method. Monáe's performance refuses the acts of dissemblance that have long characterized black women's participation in the public sphere. and ultimately overturned. to brace ourselves for her next utterance as she looks us in the eye and uses her emotional intensity to displace our intentions for her body. ideology. we are forced.” Monáe's eyes well up with tears. which argues. Raw emotion punctuates this possession.” Her contemporary artistic forum—the music video—also relies on a shared community as she performs for. to. through viewing her moving image. and collusion with European colonial powers made clear which camp the African-descended belonged to. Darlene Clark Hine argues that black women employed dissemblance throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a way to respond to rape. where political consciousness might best be fostered and utilized safe from the culture wars fought outside.” and that forecasts that “the mighty will crumble. which purports to display black reality without allowing the subject to speak. violence. constant surveillance of civil rights organizations. It is an underground. de jure practices of segregation. This rupture dismisses the standard ventriloquism of music video lip synchronization in favor of vulnerability before a knowing audience.” details a space not of death (“below the ground”) but of safety that is shared by a selfselected group who choose freedom over flight (“running from depravity”). She breaks character as the emotions escalate. a shelter. Post45. Monáe relies on invisibility in “Cold War. and a moving image that catalogs and exposes her for all time to anyone who would watch/listen. "Marking the Margins: Janelle Monáe's 'Cold War' Landscape":“This Safer Space: Janelle Monae’s´ "Cold War"”. She breaks character as the emotions escalate. It is an underground. however. while Monáe acknowledges dissemblance as a strategy. which argues. Through this effort she becomes the subject through which the forces under consideration are elucidated. music and popular culture. in African American Studies and American Studies from Yale University. signaling her . Cleveland. "If you want to be free / below the ground's the only place to be / 'cause in this life / you spend time running from depravity. she also forestalls its efficacy through that revelation. Her second verse. Raw emotion punctuates this possession. Refereed Paper. OH. missing the lines of her playback. Post45 Conference. and shaking her head and hands in acknowledgement of the emotions that originally inspired the song's composition and that are now replayed in the act of performance. The imagination of a world without surveillance against black women’s bodies is a utopian possibility REDMOND.D. Monáe's staging of interiority. to brace ourselves for her next utterance as she looks us in the eye and uses her emotional intensity to displace our intentions for her body. which purports to display black reality without allowing the subject to speak. unlike much of the disaster and tourist photography of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. is Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. She received her combined Ph. Monae’ s spatial realignments signal a powerful departure from conventional narratives of black suffering. we are forced. Black political cultures. where political consciousness might best be fostered and utilized safe from the culture wars fought outside . "I was made to believe there's something wrong with me / And it hurts my heart." Monae´ s eyes well up with tears." details a space not of death ("below the ground") but of safety that is shared by a self-selected group who choose freedom over flight ("running from depravity"). at the moment of revealing.”7 Her words echo the sentiments of Mary Church Terrell. Roundtable/Panel. There is a dramatic tension here. who early in the twentieth century announced to her constituency in the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs that “our peculiar status [as black women] in this country … seems to demand that we stand by ourselves” (Hine 917). but a music video that comprised both a sonic announcement to be replayed again and again. Spring 2011 ) Monae´ s questions to us throughout the song are met with definitive statements as she narrates a story of dispossession and alienation.11 ( Shana L. This rupture dismisses the standard ventriloquism of music video lip synchronization in favor of vulnerability before a knowing audience. effectively lifting the veil of secrecy that allowed for black women's sociopolitical subterfuge.invisibility” that allowed them to “accrue the psychic space and harness the resources needed to hold their own in the often one-sided and mismatched resistance struggle” (Hine 915). Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. is already undercut by her choice of forum: it is not a platform from which she speaks only to other black women.” insisting that “Being alone's the only way to be / When you step outside / you spend life fighting for your sanity. Her research and teaching interests include the African Diaspora. through viewing her moving image. incarcerated and killed. Criminalization has less to do with what is actually done. a Black Trans woman and activist. sexually assaulted.huffingtonpost. Web. Charlene A." The Huffington Post. surveillance. The law." whose behavior is wrongful and who should be punished. No person should have to live under the threat. TheHuffingtonPost. The call for an end to mass criminalization must include a call to the end of the Anti-Black Police State. Our affirmation of the topic represents an afrofuturist speculative fiction that imagines a radical re-centering of black women in conversations at the intersection of race.com/charlene-carruthers/end-the-antiblack-police_b_6604488. Black people who fall outside of the protected norms of whiteness. and method. heterosexuality. From the local beat cop to the police chief. arrested. gender. Whether it is Trayvon Martin walking down the street or Renisha McBride knocking on a door for help. Political organizer and writer. law enforcement . ideology. was arrested for "walking while trans. empowerment of police and reliance on punitive measures. Black people are systemically criminalized and killed for acts generally recognized as harmless when non-Black bodies perform them. fear or reality of criminalization from a neighbor. Where we go from here requires approaches to public safety that don't hinge on the control of Black people. <http://www. Our call to action must support restorative justice practices.) A future for Black people in America must include full decriminalization of acts not considered to be criminal when performed in non-Black bodies.com. This radical act of self-exposure spurns the longstanding surveillance practices of the United States and offers an alternative to the subterfuge used by oppressed peoples. an entire field of play and performative engagement that traverses period. Last year Monica Jones. However. and more to do with society's ideas about who is "other. BYP100 Agenda to Keep Us Safe defines criminalization as a process in which behaviors and people are presumed criminal.investment in using her own "Cold War" for new ends: it is no longer a contained project (war) or a historical object (music video) but it is. and the future of criminalization in an anti-black America Carruthers 2/3 (Carruthers. middle-class and otherwise so-called respectable appearances are routinely harassed. National Director BYP100 "Black Future Month: End the Anti-Black Police State. media and public perception drive criminalization." All people should be able to walk down the street without fear of being profiled. gender conformity. quality public school systems and good living-wage jobs. Criminalization impacts all Black people.html>. technology. 2015. through her. 03 Feb." Jones explains that "it's a known experience in our community of being routinely and regularly harassed and facing the threat of violence or arrest because we are Trans and therefore often assumed to be sex workers. this threat is a reality for many young Black people in the United States. police officer or teacher. The officers who killed Aura Rosser in Ann Arbor. The Anti-Black Police State protects elected officials who advocate for more police officers while public schools in Black communities are closed and underfunded en masse. Our way forward must be radically inclusive or it will repeat the same strategies. AFROFuturists will not be meeting in North Carolina barns at midnight. as they do in cities like Chicago and Oakland. parents and the public school system. Missouri are reflections of a broad and powerful Anti-Black Police State. the police officers gun in Cleveland. Michigan. There are no mantras nor mission statements that we have to memorize and repeat upon demand. MO. Don the black leather jacket. we can imagine a future without mass criminalization. For the most part. the tanks in occupied Palestine and the detention centers in Arizona are all connected. Our freedom dreams must be radical. For me. Tanisha Anderson in Cleveland. AFROFuturism has no centralized leadership. It is more of a "happening" occurring in big cities and small towns and around the world..Where we go from here requires us to see that the systems that fund tear gas in Ferguson. You take the pledge. becoming an AFROFuturist was reminiscent of joining a populist organization like the original Black Panther Party (if I had been old enough. We will not see AFROFuturists parading down Independence Avenue in Washington. AFROFuturism is similar to the revolutionary Black Panther Party except in several very important aspects. I am less invested in focusing on the character of an individual police officer than the character of the entire system. Jr. We all have seen images of the 1970s Panther Party -. prison. I want to live in the world where society prioritizes quality public education. Communities must organize against candidates who call for more police and support candidates who have commitments and records of protecting teachers. OH. There are AFROFuturistic fashion shows with champagne as well as structured academic study for PhD candidates. There is not even a secret handshake. incarceration and the Anti-Black Police State. I might have enrolled). I want to live in a world where police department budgets don't take up over 20% of overall budgets while community services are allocated 6% or less. .We'll know Black lives matter when the anti-black police state no longer exists and all people can live with dignity. to pay homage to the Martin Luther King. If enslaved Africans in the Americas could imagine a future where their grandchildren would not be slaves. plotting to storm the local police kiosk and hack their computers. Memorial. DC. sexual assault or death.the clinched fists and newspaper headlines. policies and ideas that have failed our people before. AFROFuturism is a spontaneous crusade involving a variety of individuals and activities.agencies. well-rounded social and mental health services and sustainable infrastructure. tactics. Hide behind ultra-dark sunglasses and step into the glare of a turbulent urban scene. Individual police officers are just one party in the breathing-whileBlack-pipeline to jail. Like the "Occupy Movement". There is no head committee to imprison or torture. have too much power over our lives. Ohio and Mike Brown in Ferguson. . rather. Instead. and re-articulation of. while a work in progress. or speed. It is now possible to identify a new pattern of expectation. but because they conquer the very notion of tyranny" (1984. Fur thermore. decolonizing texts that destabilize normative notions of what is possible by creating worlds in which black women not only have the power to transform their lives. 127). or seductiveness. De Witt Douglas Kilgore has suggested. No. and compulsory heterosexuality and other hegemonic social ideals. A. Their works stand as. their goal is not power. Thus. enchantment. and Nnendi Okorafo-Mbachu. 146-166 Black Girls Are from the Future In an early study of Butler s works. Her work stands alongside of and is in conversation with the work of writers such as Jewelle Gomez. 3/4. ENCHANTMENT (FALL/WINTER 2012). Vol. . Butler s emphasis on symbiosis. does not simply reinforce racism. whose pioneering work in queer speculative fiction has inspired more nuanced renderings of black sexuali ties. and women of color. a transgressive Afrofuturist feminist stance dangerous to conservative notions of identity and community often found in vampire lore.Afrofuturism Solvency The affirmative’s criticism. Butler's "Fledgling"” Women's Studies Quarterly. in the words of Kimberly Nichelle Brown (2010). Banks. feminist epistemology – voting aff is the basis for a pragmatic model for cooperation and change Susana Morris (Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Auburn University) Fall/Winter 2012 “Black Girls Are from the Future: Afrofuturist Feminism in Octavia E. their strength can be found in symbiosis and hybridity. Octavia Butler is one member of a thriving cohort of Afrofuturist femi nist writers whose work is actively reconfiguring the contours of specula tive fiction. unenchanted world as we try to make feminist futures out of tren chant patriarchal realities. L. unapologetically. 8l). contemporary government surveillance practices functions as an Afrofuturist. "Black women who contribute to [science fiction/fantasy/horror] have reached the point where the history they recover can potentially become future history. often. "Though Butler s heroines are dangerous and powerful women. the organizing principles of Ina life have the potential to stand as a sort of Afrofuturist feminist epistemology and become a pragmatic model of cooperation that. whose dark fan tasy/horror novels rival Buffy s girl power but without the racist dynamics. pp. communities. Tananarive Due. Butler insists that vampires' potential strength is not in their brawn. and the ways in which the novel's humans and Ina struggle to make sense of the evolu tion of their cultures and species reflects the challenges found in our own diverse. whose recent work in horror has revolutionized the genre by focusing on complex black heroines. whose stories of precolonial Africa incite us to reenvision the continent s past and future. Fledgling strips vampires of both their omnipotence and their universal izing whiteness. They are heroines not because they conquer the world. Ultimately. and even species but do so routinely and. Butler s final novel.10 This sentiment also describes the dynamics at the heart of Fledgling. Nalo Hopkinson. 40. Ruth Salvaggio contends. whose Afrodiasporic tales of fantasy and folklore skill fully blend tradition with a futurist vision. while mainstream speculative fiction might depict women. one that emerges from longsuppressed voices" (2008. sexism. they re-imagined technologies to create new artistic works or . futuristic treaties. or DJ/multimedia artist DJ Spooky are among the more popular purveyors of the genre (although Sun Ra. Caribbean. While history texts are still recovering from the conspicuous absence of the contributions of non-European cultures across the world and in America. the depictions are culturally rich takes on the future through fiction that explore identity. critical essays and other mediums dedicated to futuristic explorations primarily through the arts. The aesthetic includes the music. caste systems and the realities of secondclass citizenship. Afrofuturism is a term that emerged in the mid 90s. Hijacking the imagination and perpetuating limiting views on culture and humanity in the imaginative future just won’t do. Works range in theme and story lines but they are typically characterized by compelling insights. Ytasha. as accessories or minor characters. science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Artists like jazz composer Sun Ra. and Africa and beyond. Pioneers created works largely to challenge color-based social structures. For example. For many. simply placing a young African American girl in a futuristic context challenges the absence of such images and rearticulates the relevance of such cultures and world views in art depicting the future.especially. visual art. In many cases. film. Afrofuturism: An Aesthetic and Exploration of Identity) The world of science fiction is known for its absence of cultural diversity. coined by cultural critic Mark Dery who affixed the term to the growing artistic movement and critiques that followed narratives of people of African descent in a sci-fi. In fact. Afrofuturists seek to inspire and forge a stronger self-identity and respect for humanity by encouraging enthusiasts to reexamine their environments and reimagine the future in a cross cultural context. There are a bevy of new wave artists. 70s funk pioneer George Clinton. Enter Afrofuturism. celebrated culture and universality. and positioned the teen smack dab in the latter part of the 21st century. musicians and filmmakers creating new works as well as a cadre of established professors now chronicling and teaching it. which plagued the experience of black people. Afrofuturism is now taught in several universities as an artistic aesthetic. too. particularly in music. particularly in America and across the world for much of the modern era. both cosmetic and analytical into black identity in the Americas. there’s an equal need to claim the future as well. Clinton and Butler did work long before the term came into vogue). a tool for critical cultural analysis. her hair was styled in an Afro and she wore an ankh. The image bound the future with the past. an ancient Kemetic symbol on her green-friendly T-shirt. one digital Afrofuturist painting of a young African American girl in the future depicted her in metallic space boots and pants. literature. Afrofuturism is a critical tool for cultural analysis – counters dehumanization Womack 2012 (L. a platform for rethinking the impact of modernization on cultural creations as well as an exploration of identity. From soul singer Erykah Badu’s “Next Lifetime” video which highlights West African traditions in a futuristic society to Nnedi Okorofor’s book “Who Fears Death” chronicling a mystical young girl in post-apocalyptic Africa. Latin America. these authors insist that black women and girls are in the present and can and do signify (on) the future. Afrofuturism has a great deal of reverence for ancestors and ancient societies as well as an active celebration of movements in history that countered the active dehumanization of people of color through power systems.reinvented processes that created new sounds. Many Afrofuturist works are characterized by a synchronicity between the past and the future. Hoodoo) and Native American folklore and spirituality are common as are references to Asian fighting arts and the civil rights movement in the US. a film which was technically advanced at the time but also reinforced horrific stereotypes of blacks during the Reconstruction period in the US and established ethnic stereotypes in films for years to come. DJ Spooky linked the images on the screen to his turntable and mixed and scratched along with the revisioning of the film. Afrofuturism celebrates new takes on modernization and the histories that have facilitated social change. plays drums in black feminist punk band Big Joanie and is currently in her final year studying for a BA (Hons) Arts and Humanities at Birkbeck. etc).theguardian. funk. Humanity. for one. present.Tuesday 7 January 2014. References to Egyptian deities and other African Traditional Religions (Yoruba. African Derived Religions (Santeria. The creations of avant-garde jazz. dub. She is a member of Writers of Colour. Imagination allow for us to create a space and language to address issues in the past. Pyramids and Politics Collide” http://www. DJ Spooky.com/science/political-science/2014/jan/07/afrofuturismwhere-space-pyramids-and-politics-collide . The use of a turntable needle in hip-hop to create music or the multi-layering of prerecorded noises in dub are as Afrofuturist as Motown Record’s Berry Gordy looking to Detroit’s car assembly lines as a basis for creating a new system in artist development. is most known for reediting the film Birth of a Nation. many Afrofuturists aim to challenge society’s limits to the imagination and this limitation includes a very narrow reflection on race.In essence. This reverence is rearticulated in a futuristic context. “Afrofuturism: Where Space. and future Stone. Spirituality and mysticism are frequent threads. While many science fiction works heavily disavow the past. 14 (Chardine Taylor-Stone is the founder of black speculative fiction book club Mothership Connections (@MCBookClub on Twitter). freedom and self-determination are common themes. TAM) .An extensive body of critical analysis using Afrofuturism as the prism currently exists. the growing body of work categorized in this genre is fascinating and enriching.While all works dubbed Afrofuturist aren’t created by people of African descent or don’t deal with black identity on the surface (the pop culture favorite “The Matrix” or the original “Night of the Living Dead” film for example) they share themes. Candomble. identity and perspectives by people of color. Although some might argue that the term itself is as freeing as it is constricting. symbolism or imagery that evokes cultural markers. culture and ethnicity in fictional and artistic works on the future. hip-hop and other genres are as innovative for their musicality as for their experimentations with electronic sounds and machinery. house. Each explores the impact of modernization and environment on the creation of artistic movements. previously inaccessible alienations. focuses on someone who is at odds with the apparatus of power in society and whose profound experience is one of cultural dislocation. and social and . Afrofuturism provides a lot more to the black experience than simple escapism.) Afrofuturism does not stop at correcting the history of the future . Tate argued that “The form itself.Further Considerations of Afrofuturism. socio-historical studies of medicine. Nor is it a simple matter of inserting more black actors into science-fiction narratives. Afrofuturism’s specificity lies in assembling conceptual approaches and countermemorial mediated practices in order to access triple consciousness. "Project MUSE . dislocating societies and circumstances and that pretty much sums up the mass experiences of black people in the postslavery twentieth century . in Greg Tate’s formulation. Oxford University. although I will always have time for that too. theorist and filmmaker. Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. 2002 (Alondra. Afro-futurism also creates a viable process of dis-alienation Eshun ‘13(Eshun.. Most science fiction tales dramatically deal with how the individual is going to contend with these alienating. In this sense. If we are able to name these frameworks in the same way we recognise Big Brother when we see him. and Romanticism and Modernism MA Hons at Southampton University. writer. just as the language used in Orwell’s 1984 has been used to frame the debate around increasing government surveillance. As Michah Yongo points out.2eshun.S. Michigan State University Press.Further Considerations of Afrofuturism. studied English Literature at University College. quadruple consciousness. science and technology. T he condition of alienation. Kowdo. Web." Project MUSE . Slavery is analogous to alien abduction – thus blacks have been living in an alien nation for centuries – thus the black body does not represent the ideal of humanity – Afrofuturist discourse demonstrates a move by black bodies from the subhuman to the posthuman Nelson.Afrofuturism creates a space for those from the Black Diaspora to explore issues in the present and how they will manifest in the future. silver Dashikis and pyramid-shaped spaceships. black science fiction can provide a new language to address the increasingly complicated frameworks of discrimination. the conventions of the narrative in terms of the way it deals with subjectivity. Black existence and science fiction are one and the same.jhu. it is the first step in being able to dismantle them. understood in its most general sense. Dubois termed the condition of structural and psychological alienation as double consciousness.html. <https://muse.” At the century’s start. summer 2013. In The Last Angel of History. Page 289>. gender and kinship. Afrodiasporic subjects live the estrangement that science-fiction writers envision. Her areas of specialization include race and ethnicity in the U. is a psychosocial inevitability that all Afrodiasporic art uses to its own advantage by creating contexts that a process of disalienation. These methods are only baby steps towards the more totalizing realization that . holds an appointment in the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWaG).edu/journals/new_centennial_review/v003/3. alienation and estrangement. ethnicity and gender derived from scientific and technical domains. 2002) page 27 Taking the negative ontological placement of black subjects in Western modernity as his point of departure. and into an entire series of humans that were designed in America. and science fiction collected under the rubric Afrofuturism. Duke University Press. engage and.21 Eshun’s 1998 volume More Brilliant than the Sun: represents the most extensive manifesto of this movement. funk. black posthumanism stands in stark Adventures in Sonic Fiction contrast to the strong humanist strand found in a host of black cultural styles. Paul D. Eshun describes these two modes of thinking as Afrodiasporic futurism and the humanist futureshock absorbers of mainstream black culture. the key behind it all is that in America none of these humans were designated human.cultural theory. The mutation of African male and female slaves in the eighteenth century into what became negro.Americans owe nothing to the status of the human. including aspects of personal identification. ranging from the majority of African American literature to the history of soul and the blues. emphasis mine) As a result of the dehumanizing forces of slavery. as well as providing a dazzling account of the technicity of black music .20 Eshun belongs to a growing number of critics exploring the intersections of black cultural production. tracing different forms of alienness and posthumanity through various genres of post– World War II black popular music. Eshun’s important work unearths some of the radical strands of black music that refuse to uncritically embrace the Western conception of “the human. Nalo Hopkinson. Eshun claims that the sign of the human harbors a negative significance. certain kinds of black popular music stage black subjectivity. including Greg Tate. in Afrofuturist musical configurations. Miller (DJ Spooky). According to Eshun. That whole process. in some instances. Mark Dery. There is this sense of the human as being a really pointless and treacherous category. adopt and mobilize conceptualizations of race. in Eshun’s frame of reference. she also explores the ways in which social groups challenge. and jungle. . Kodwo Eshun constructs an argument that posits a specifically black constellation of the posthuman in which New World black subjects have privileged access to the posthuman because they were denied the status of human for so long. In turn. In these genres. shifting forms of nonhuman otherworldliness replace the human as the central characteristic of black subjectivity: The idea of slavery as an alien abduction means that we’ve all been living in an alien-nation since the eighteenth century. he argues. Sheree Thomas. including jazz. and therefore do not rely on the black voice as a figure of value. techno. if any. Afrofuturism. racial formation and collective action. and the many contributors to the AfroFuturism Web site and listserv. technology. hip hop. Carol Cooper.” are largely instrumental. It’s in the music that you get this sense that most African. (192 – 93. bypassing the modality of the human in the process of moving from the subhuman to the posthuman. Nelson studies the production of knowledge about human difference in biomedicine and technoscience and the circulation of these ideas in the public sphere: Her research focuses on how science and its applications shape the social world. "Marking the Margins: Janelle Monáe's 'Cold War' Landscape":“This Safer Space: Janelle Monae’s´ "Cold War"”. Yet her engagement with and demand for the rights of access and voice are consistent throughout. OH.D. Spring 2011 ) Monae´s performative unveiling sensitizes us to questions of truth as the layers of history. Cleveland. to construct a "Cold War" free speech zone—a task and location little known during the historical moment that the song references. as subjects rather than objects REDMOND. Too often safe spaces are limited in their availability for the disenfranchised. Post45. even as she leads a cohort in the present and envisions a future beyond her own critique. Roundtable/Panel. Post45 Conference. Refereed Paper. Her research and teaching interests include the African Diaspora. Roundtable/Panel. "Marking the Margins: Janelle Monáe's 'Cold War' Landscape":“This Safer Space: Janelle Monae’s´ "Cold War"”. She received her combined Ph. Her "Cold War" imagination therefore creates an alternative reality that is recognizably different from those of her contemporaries within the shared "superpublic" described by Richard Iton. Mon´ae s willingness to challenge history situates her as a spectral figure representing the unfinished work of the past. yet the method of exposure—performance—signals another intervention (Hine 915). Black political cultures.D. in which black bodies and performances are conspicuous in the visual cultures grown from hip hop and the Internet. Spring 2011 TAM) . in African American Studies and American Studies from Yale University. The music video. the affirmatives performance seeks to refuse acts of dissemblance and self-imposed invisibility – creating speculative futures that recenter black women on their own terms.Afrofuturism Solvency – Janelle Monae Our imagination creates an alternative reality different than the norm and performance of the black body that stands out to be seen and known. which has offered a platform for display and critique since the 1970s. identity.11 ( Shana L. Like Janelle Monae. yet Mon´ae is able. is Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC.11 ( Shana L. Her performance makes the space to critique how dissemblance may have "contributed to the development of an atmosphere inimical to realizing equal opportunity or a place of respect". Her research and teaching interests include the African Diaspora. music and popular culture. and resistance collapse on one another . through various creative and organizing techniques. is used by Monae´ in "Cold War" as a confessional site. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Refereed Paper. a shelter ae where the struggles of the ordinary black women described by Hine. She received her combined Ph. music and popular culture. OH. Post45. Cleveland. is Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. in African American Studies and American Studies from Yale University. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. without without consent REDMOND. Post45 Conference. and embodied by Monae´ might be discussed and responded to. Black political cultures. "7 Her words echo the sentiments of Mary Church Terrell. is already undercut by her choice of ae' forum: it is not a platform from which she speaks only to other black women. . There is a dramatic tension here. she also forestalls its efficacy through that revelation. however. . and the threats thereof. These refusals produced a "self-imposed invisibility" that allowed them to "accrue the psychic space and harness the resources needed to hold their own in the often one-sided and mismatched resistance struggle" (Hine 915). Darlene Clark Hine argues that black women employed dissemblance throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a way to respond to rape. Mon´ae relies on invisibility in "Cold War. violence. . seems to demand that we stand by ourselves" (Hine 917)." insisting that "Being alone's the only way to be / When you step outside / you spend life fighting for your sanity. and a moving image that catalogs and exposes her for all time to anyone who wFATCA and the broader tax crackdownould watch/listen. who early in the twentieth century announced to her constituency in the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs that "our peculiar status [as black women] in this country .Monae´s staging of interiority.Monae´s performance refuses the acts of dissemblance that have long characterized black women's participation in the public sphere. but a music video that comprised both a sonic announcement to be replayed again and again. while Mon´ acknowledges dissemblance as a strategy. effectively lifting the veil of secrecy that allowed for black women's sociopolitical subterfuge. thus "creat[ing] the appearance of openness and disclosure but actually shield[ing] the truth of their inner lives" (912). " The Guardian. Founder of fiction book clubMothership Connections.) Afrofuturism creates a space for those from the Black Diaspora to explore issues in the present and how they will manifest in the future. As Michah Yongo points out. Web. just as the language used in Orwell’s 1984 has been used to frame the debate around increasing government surveillance. If we are able to name these frameworks in the same way we recognise Big Brother when we see him. 7 Jan. although I will always have time for that too. Member of Writers of Colour. The Guardian. "Afrofuturism: Where Space.Sequencing Afrofuturism is a prerequisite productive frameworks and vocabularies for analyzing government surveillance policies – it’s a crucial first step Taylor-Stone ’14 (Taylor-Stone.theguardian. plays drums in black feminist punk band Big Joanie and has BA (Hons) Arts and Humanities. . black science fiction can provide a new language to address the increasingly complicated frameworks of discrimination. Afrofuturism provides a lot more to the black experience than simple escapism.Afrofuturism Solvency . Pyramids and Politics Collide. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww. Chardine. 2014.com%2Fscience %2Fpolitical-science%2F2014%2Fjan%2F07%2Fafrofuturism-where-space-pyramidsand-politics-collide>. silver Dashikis and pyramid-shaped spaceships. it is the first step in being able to dismantle them . In this sense. jazz keyboardist. using it to spread his message despite the fact that black radio in the form of announcer Jimmy Fey is compromised by the evil Overseer’s influence.google. Ra visits Earth in a spaceship. the Arkestra performs many pieces of diegetic and non-diegetic music in its effort to uplift the race to outer space. During this show the FBI men try to assassinate Ra at his Minimoog keyboard. The musical science fiction film Space is the Place was directed by John Coney in Oakland. Ra engages in no less than a struggle for the souls of black folk against an archetypal pimp/mack/ player/business figure called the Overseer.com/url? sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QFjAAah UKEwiFnf2msODGAhWq83IKHU3vB_U&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww. Sun Ra and Afrofuturism’” https://www. Though US state documentation registers his birth as Herman Blount in Birmingham. California in 1972. California 1972 where he communicates with local African Americans and tries to convince them to leave with him for a space colony. and Media Studies at the University of Auckland) 2004 “‘The transmolecularization of [Black] folk: Space is the Place. But given the limited time here I’ll focus on the unstable generic status of the film.Afrofuturism Solvency . Ra also contends with the surveillance and violence of the United States government.edu %2Fmedia%2Fview%2F362786%2Foriginal%2FZuberi-%2BThe %2BTransmolecularization%2Bof%2B%25255BBlack%25255D%2BFolk-%2BSpace %2Bis%2Bthe%2BPlace%25252C%2BSun%2BRa%2Band%2BAfrofuturism%2B--%2Bcorrected. composer. The medium of combat is a magic card game and Ra’s most potent weapon is his music. Ra also encounters the largely corrupt media network system. Three young black men rescue Ra just in time for the Arkestra to perform a concert for the community.amherst. arranger and bandleader of the Intergalactic Myth-Science Solar Arkestra. I examine how the film Space is the Place has been remediated (along with its star Sun Ra) in emergent techno-centric or mediacentric writing on popular music as well as science fiction film. In SITP. Like the alien prophet Klaatu played by Michael Rennie in the 1951 liberal Cold War sci-fi classic . time travelling between Chicago 1943 and Oakland.Surveillance Afrofuturism is rooted in resistance against surveillance studies – foundational texts challenge the futuristic means of identification and control through speculative fiction Nabeel Zuberi (Senior Lecturer in Film. Television. Ra teleports these youths into his spaceship and the Arkestra departs for outer space. but are again foiled by the three youths. for much of his life Sun Ra claimed to be an alien from the planet Saturn. In the film. The FBI kidnaps and sonically tortures him with a recording of the Confederate anthem ‘Dixie’. and produced by Jim Newman for release by North American Star Systems in 1974. as well as its music—in particular. I also examine and critique notions of the ‘post-human’ in debates about Afrofuturism in the African diaspora as they appropriate the figure of Sun Ra in Space is the Place1. The film stars Sun Ra. Alabama. the use of the Moog synthesizer as an agent of transformation.pdf&ei=6ASoVYWJCarnywPN3poDw&usg=AFQjCNEhJCN0v8hraCITziBYP0E_XEvh5A&sig2=f3JfnNmO38KAOXsMO0NZ uQ In the longer version of this paper. Not like Planet Earth. We’ll bring them here through either isotope teleportation. part revisionist biblical epic’2. without any white people there. further exposing the contradiction that the utopian Hollywood musical in its form integrated the community while maintaining racialsocial segregation and division. the film’s mix of signifyin(g) humour. In fact. a bizarre or camp oddity with a disorganized and almost nonsensical plot. anger. part science fiction. Planet Earth sounds of guns. Attention to aural texture meant stretching the sonic possibilities of existing instruments. Like much of Sun Ra’s oeuvre. often conflicting inputs of Newman. the musical. Many changes and scene cuts were made during the film’s production and post-production. This molecular milestone in the history of African American film plays a small role in the process of what Arthur Knight calls ‘disintegrating the musical’. Albert Ayler. In the style of much African diasporic vernacular expression and media practice3. pop musicals and music videos5. intensities. the urban youth film and the documentary. transmolecularization or better 993 still. Against the long durée of film cycles and linear historical sedimentation. the science fiction film theory of Scott Bukatman and Brooks Landon also concentrates on cinematic moments. Rock music in the 1960s distorted tones and chords through electrical . many other brief descriptions or reviews of the film on the Web represent it as an early 70s curiosity. Ra’s statement expresses ideas akin to those in the discourse around the music of Ornette Coleman. teleport the whole planet here through music’. John Coltrane. space-age prophecy and various generic elements are hardly beyond comprehension. In the digital era. Sun Ra lands on earth to inform the human race that it needs redemption. but leaves after relatively little success. We’ll set up a colony for black people here. redemption of black people comes through music. fleeting and mobile formations. Cecil Taylor and others. the film ‘signifies’ across and between a number of recognizable film genres and modes such as science fiction. he contends that aspects of the disintegrated musical appear in a number of later forms such as blaxploitation.The Day the Earth Stood Still. director John Coney. Though Knight’s study focuses on an earlier period of film history (1929-59). Initially envisaged by producer Jim Newman as a documentary. Eric Dolphy. mutable. screenwriter Joshua Smith. The vibrations are different. Recent film genre theory also confirms a view of genres as unstable. Like Szwed. In this low budget sci-fi film. In his excellent biography of Sun Ra. the avant-garde conceived of ‘new techniques as a means of more than technical transformation. and Sun Ra himself. often producing dissonance and atonality. We can view it as the kind of ‘imperfect cinema’ lauded by Third Cinema theorists and filmmakers or a generic/genetic mutation in the margins of the early 70s New Hollywood system4. a more horizontal and hypertextual sense of genre formation has emerged in the genre theory of Nick Browne and Rick Altman6. spectacle and special effects at the expense of linear narrative7. Musical form is a template for society and the body. At the beginning of the film in a forest on another planet Ra says to the camera: ‘The Music is different here. some at Ra’s behest. the work as a transcendental laboratory or proving ground’8. SITP is concerned with how music can transport black people to other states of being in both material and spiritual terms. As Lawrence Kart puts it. part blaxploitation. John Szwed describes SITP as ‘part documentary. According to Ra. frustration. See what they can do on a planet all their own. Szwed suggests that the film became a mishmash of genres due to the different. music is the special effect. chants. In SITP. Though Ra’s soft voice offers pedagogical monologues. jazz and other popular music styles becomes increasingly blurred in the 1960s. who worked on the overall design of the Moog. as well as drones produced through stable sine wave generation. For example. But Jon Weiss. recorded in 1972. programmed Sun Ra’s Minimoog for him11 . comments that Ra ‘had taken this synthesizer and I don’t know what he had done to it. rapid keyboard runs and less ‘musical’ beeps and burps. in his Afrofuturist sermon More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction. but he made sounds like you had never heard in your life. bongos and bells. slogans and quasi-jingles for outer space travel. trumpets and saxophones complement the screeching tones of tyres in car chases and the high-pitched whooping of police sirens. New electronic instruments such as the Moog synthesizer produced peculiar tones outside the parameters of previous listening. transcendence. science-fiction film soundtracks. if you will). Ra uses the Minimoog for discrete sci-fi effects that primarily signal a disruptive presence. In their history of the Moog. Close ups of June Tyson other medium shots of the Arkestra feature a dark anonymous background. and the ‘exotica’ recordings of Les Baxter and others since the 1940s. The minimoog joins the piano. The Arkestra’s horns feature strongly in the sound of SITP. engages in dialogues and ‘declamations’ (such as ‘I am the Brother the Wind’). They have clearly been filmed in a recording studio. the Arkestra’s horns lead the marches of many pro-space anthems such as ‘We travel the spaceways’ and ‘Watusa’. Though SITP shows the musicians in ‘authentic’ live performance--common in many post-1950s jazz films and entrenched by the early 1970s after the rock concert films Monterey Pop (1967) and Woodstock (1969)— here shots of the Arkestra cut back and forth to the story world of Oakland. Sun Ra’s soundtrack for the film. but also propel the film’s one car chase sequence. We are never clear where the Arkestra is—if it’s in the space ship or is the sonic motor of the spaceship itself. Gershon Kingsley. common to other African American genres of this period. exploits the Minimoog’s capabilities for a range of alien textures. black British cultural critic Kodwo Eshun argues: that Sun Ra uses the Moog to produce a new sonic people9. I mean just total inharmonic distortion all over the place. Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco state that it became an ‘apparatus for transgression. Only in the rehearsal and final concert at the end of the film do . The sounds of the Moog are semiotically charged with rematerialization (or transmolecularization. but in the urban action film. oscillators weren’t oscillating anymore. June Tyson’s voice dominates with her repeated long phrases. koras.means such as amplification and feedback. Hohner Clavinet and Rocksichord in Sun Ra’s electrical keyboard armoury. nothing was working but it was fabulous’12. Though the eerie otherworldly sound of the theremin had weaved through thrillers. ‘dark’ as well as warm tones. a musician-engineer who worked with Robert Moog. and transformation’10. The Arkestra’s music accompanies almost all the action in the film but the musicans are rarely in the space of the film narrative. Another strong element in the soundtrack is the polyrhythmic ‘Africanist’ drumming and percussion of congas. the line between noise/sound effects and music in rock. blaxploitation and road movie. Brass usually evokes 994 the military and warfare in science fiction films. Farfisa organ. This is why Sun Ra’s music has become something of a point of origin for today’s advocates of electronica and cited as an example of the power of noise to disrupt the social and musical status quo or system. a generic nod to the backstage musical and youth film in which the culmination of the narrative is the ‘kids putting on a show’ for the community. Space is the Place foregrounds the government’s audiovisual surveillance of citizens and resident aliens. They are so much exemplars of a post-human that supercedes the human. And like many films of the American Vietnam War and Watergate period. but illustrations of how limited and provincial the notion of ‘humanity’ remains in the USA. SITP also riffs on the language (and some of the clichés) of black nationalism in the urban African American film of the period. These themes make the film and Sun Ra’s body of work still relevant today. . The film’s dialogue pastiches and parodies the babble of radio and television.we briefly see the group in Oakland. it is perhaps Bloch's that provides the amplest. as works that may be coming into being but possess no established empirical validation yet. For Lukacs. that is. not accidentally. Indeed. among whole genres. Here the chief structuring datum is a real Novum. the imaginary works of art that give the protagonist his generic identity as an artist. Of all versions of critical theory. What Bloch actually stresses." 31 The perspective of utopia alone makes completely clear how banal and corrupt are the barriers of the status quo that utopia works to transcend. which are. the fact that utopian plenitude can only be apprehended in the most elusive and fragmentary anticipations-that utopia emerges only in the teeth. polyvalent style of the novel actually functions . philosophically antithetical. 67-70) As a version of critical theory. that is. nonetheless implies a ruthless negation and demystification of actuality : "The essential function of utopia is a critique of what is present. through its concrete historical-materialist ontology and epistemology that negate (and sublate) the abstractions of naturalism and psychologism. however. On the other critical-theoretical project. authentic critical realism.possesses a potentially revolutionary charge in its grasp of the diverse and contradictory interconnectedness of the social field. directly serves the revolutionary project. perhaps more pertinently. the specifically negative dimension of the utopian dialectic-the dimension of critique in the familiar sense of astringent in every concrete instance it points to a corresponding positivity and plenitude. On the one hand. hand. and action) of reality into utopia. If we had not already gone beyond the barriers.finds its true significance in utopian construing. The plot of the novel is thus devoted to the strictly reactionary project of solving the crime and identifying the culprit in order that the status quo ante – the as-if-unproblematic condition of the detective's society prior to the (singular) crime-may be restored. however. Though Bloch (like Bakhtin and Lukacs) exhibits little or no personal acquaintance with science fiction as such. he indirectly provides a guide to the utopian dimension of science fiction in his two great companion essays in genre criticism. language. but that can be located only on the Front. as a utopian figure of a multicultural liberated humanity . The essentially Oedipal structure of the detective novel is oriented decisively toward the past. chief datum of the text was committed. Indeed. Indeed. not only among individual artworks but. For Bloch all genuine art- virtually by definition. when the crime that constitutes the detective fiction with science fiction). a substantially similar dialectic does operate in the theories of Bakhtin and Lukacs. "A Philosophical View of the Detective Novel. as we have already seen. Now. remain wholly self-identical: Of course.the standpoint. “Critical Theory and Science Fiction” Wesleyan University Press. of the transparency that only a postrevolutionary classless society could enable. the utopian hermeneutic of Bloch not only ranks in importance with Bakhtinian stylistics and Lukacsian genre analysis but illustrates more emphatically than they do a crucial dialectical doubleness at the heart of the whole utopia." and "A Philosophical View of the Novel of the Artist. demonstration of the reciprocity and indispensability of the negative and positive moments of the critical dialectic. " Whereas the .Associate Professor of English at Louisiana State University (Carl. it may well be Bloch's utopian hermeneutic that bears the deepest affinity with science fiction."33 Bloch sees the two genres as comparable. we can go so far as to say that the telos of critical theory in general can only be the transformation (in thought. Freudian and even some poststructuralist) thought exist. of the mundane – is the most devastating commentary upon the latter. in Blochian terms. argue that. then. as it were. University Press of London. is the much greater utopian energy at work in the novel of the artist. the critical heteroglossia or multiaccentuality of novelistic style – as opposed to the closed monologism of the poetic. to authentic utopian fulfillment.Sci-Fi Utopianism Good Science fiction the best form of utopian thinking – allows the criticism of traditional dominant structures and the emergence of hope Freedman 2000 -. although Bloch himself does not pursue this line of thought. as we have seen. the supreme positive value. For the former. demystification -can never. frequently "popular" forms (but such a juxtaposition might more likely pair Detective fiction is a deeply conservative form in which utopia is at a minimum. a purely realistic text could only be composed from the standpoint of utopia. namely. though to a lesser degree. we could not even perceive them as barriers . in order to clear space upon which positive alternatives to the existent can be constructed. for Bakhtin. most explicit ultimately. some of which participate more fully in the utopian dialectic than others. Nevertheless. there are discriminations to be made. however. there is no doubt that a comprehensively Blochian reading would be capable of constructing anticipatory pre-illuminations of utopian collectivity even from such regressive Tory loci as a rural English village in Agatha Christie or an Oxford college in Dorothy Sayers. one might even the open. The elaborate demystifying apparatuses of Marxist (and. for those anticipatory figurations of an unalienated future that constitute the deepest critical truth of which art is capable . at the level of the Not-Yet Being. penetrating backward to a past crime. utopia cannot finally be understood as simply cut off from the empirical world of actuality . such shards of utopia as may be found the superficially mundane context is dynamically reconstituted as a potential future. an artist (for that title cannot be earned by a single haunting villanelle ). but is instead such a radical novelty as to reconstitute the entire surrounding world and thus. provides an even more pertinent illustration of the Blochian point. in our postmodern environment that ruthlessly tends toward total reification. in a sense. Indeed. at least in our time. which probably occurs more readily to the Englishspeaking reader. the privileged generic tendency for utopia. as we have also seen. Furthermore. as we have seen. the general circumstances of postmodernity that necessarily define the status and importance of science fiction today. after all. that is. new and strange. is never a single new element inserted into an essentially unchanged mundane environment. Even more than in the novel of the artist. genuinely critical and transformative . The great artworks that constitute Stephen as the hero of a Bildungsroman about an artist are not only imaginary but.utopia that constitutes the practical end of utopian critique and the ultimate object of utopian hope . Science fictional utopias solve alienation and exclusion Freedman 2000 -. the cognitive rationality (at least in literary effect) of science fiction allows utopia to emerge as more fully itself. The reading of science fiction drives us into lands where we have never set foot and yet which-because they are cognitively linked to the world we do know and are invested with our actual longings-do indeed amount to a kind of homeland . Likewise. as he himself suggests in his determination to "forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. the dynamic of science fiction can on one level be identified with the hope principle itself ." 34 our Bloch's fundamental generic point about the novel of the artist is even more relevant to science fiction. an artist as a young man. then. in fantastic representations of Cockaigne or Never-Never Land involve the recasting of utopia into irrationalist form. It is the transformation of actuality into . demystifying dimension." as Bloch summarizes. precisely. In this way. but a future artist. the defining features of science fiction are located on the In-Front-of-Us. the science-fictional text is. Although (as Bloch himself makes clear) the longings expressed in fantasies and fairy tales may well possess authentic utopian value. utopia has never been so desperately needed as it is now. “Critical Theory and Science Fiction” Wesleyan University Press. the novel of the artist requires recognition of an interest in the creative person who brings out something new instead of something past" (Utopian Function 267). University Press of London. as pure though concrete potentiality. By contrast.Associate Professor of English at Louisiana State University (Carl. In strictly utopian manner. 199-200) It is. More difficult to attain even than critique in its negative. of new worlds (as in Last and First Men or its even more wide-ranging sequel. and in the dimension of utopian futurity. exist only on the level of the Not-Yet. or to imagine sociopolitical bureaucratization and Stalinist betrayal almost six decades earlier) . In other words.detective novel. "requires a process of collecting evidence. defined by its creation of a new world whose radical novelty estranges the empirical world of the status quo. Mann's Doctor Faustus (1947) is the principal exemplar of the novel of the artist. or whether (as in Frankenstein) the Novum manifests itself as one novelty of such radical and profound newness that (as was discussed in the preceding section) the utopian aspect of such science-fictional futures is heightened by the cognitive and critical nature of science-fictional estrangement. is not. And this is equally true whether the Novum of science fiction is expressed by the wholesale production entire view of the society that his artistic achievements will retroactively redefine. not since before the October Revolution itself I have already discussed. For the German-speaking Bloch. (whose ultimate overthrow in 1991 constituted only the sickening final chapter of a downward narrative begun with has it been harder and lonelier to imagine a social organization beyond alienation and exploitation . it is the future – the fractional anticipations of that which is coming into existence – that structures Stephen: and not only him individually but. to create (though certainly not ex nihilo) a new world. The estranging novelties that characterize the genre correspond precisely to the Blochian Novum-which. Stephen Dedalus. Star Maker [1937]). but Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). As science fiction is. even within the world of the text. postmodernity may be to the critical and utopian power of science fiction at its Science fiction has. it does mean free to be a crab. … One must go forward – step by step further into decadence (that is my definition of mondern ‘progress’). we need art periodically to wake us up by making the familiar suddenly seem strange . . television and film.and the process of estrangement is defamiliarization . something that targets a specific people in the name of “crime prevention” Flanagan. Australia and is currently working on a project that examines the representation of technology in children's literature. Surveillance and Subjectivity: Deconstructing Race in Jan Mark's Useful Idiots”. “Skin Colour. Accordingly. however close to impossible it may be. characters and settings to comment upon.” as Nieztsche writes. or stand in for. even while encountering substantial difficulty with the kind of progression that postmodernity has in fact entailed . situation (however hostile. no matter how unpromising a critical and utopian activity that may seem (as now) to be . Though this does not. in most other respects. Although realist texts can also employ modes of representation that defamiliarise what is usually recognisable. 2011) A technique closely associated with fantasy literature is defamiliarisation. ' (130). social reality. it is in the generic nature of science fiction to confront the future. it should be remembered that the advent of science fiction during the moment of Mary Shelley is inseparable most radical).Such imagining. 11 (Victoria Flanagan is a lecturer in children's literature at Macquarie University in Sydney. . the art of representing familiar phenomena in new or strange ways in order to disrupt the reader's usual manner of perceiving the world. from the very invention of history and the future as these terms are now meaningful. Indeed. To what degree science fiction will prove adequate to the task cannot be predicted. Fantasy thus defamiliarises the world as we know it. as we have also seen. as we have seen. yet the novel . Mark makes good use of this strategy. Technology plays an important role in the novel ." in currently fashionable jargon).both in terms of how it is used to evoke human progress and how it affects individual subjectivity. that of all literary modes science fiction ought to be the least tempted by the kind of premodern regressivity whose strength still largely defines the moment of modernism itself. especially in her examination of the relationship between racial identity and technology. In other words. the genre of fantasy tends to use this strategy as a primary means of communicating both story and significance.” Fantasy allows for us to take part in defamiliarisation and see surveillance what it really is. must now be the principal vocation of science fiction. Yet there is at least one sense in which science fiction is particularly well suited to the postmodern forces more decisive than the regime of exchange-value (of "the market. Holman and Harmon suggest that 'because our senses are forever falling into rigid habits and empty routines. using fantastic events. These technological advancements have resulted in an environment that is under constant surveillance. “is imply any sort of futurism in the positivistic sense. and advancements in technology that have eradicated much of the disease and sickness which characterise human life in our quotidian world. its general orientation primarily toward the future. The future world of Useful Idiots is distinctive from the present on two fronts: the changing geography of the Earth's surface. even more than the modernist fictionality-still very far from formally exhausted-of Joyce or Proust. science fiction must scorn the concept of regression to the premodern. “No one. in which Merrick's point of view is countered by Frida's. In this context. no scanner') in his focalisation. Critical discussions of surveillance (which gained momentum in the early 1990s) are.resists the familiar association of the racialised body with heightened electronic monitoring. Merrick's initial experience of Frida's home is thus represented as one that is characterised by lack. Mark offers a more nuanced representation of the effects of technology on individual subjectivity. The novel thus defamiliarises the reader's expectations regarding what would be considered (in relation to our everyday world) excessive 170 VICTORIA FLANAGAN surveillance. it is the lack of surveillance (amongst a range of things that he perceives as different) that causes most consternation. Surveillance as Social Sorting. A discussion with Frida ensues. a process which involves the specific targeting of racial groups (Surveillance Studies 63). according to John McGrath. Mark's decision not to make the Oysters the target of governmental surveillance is an interesting and enlightened one.and as McGrath asserts. because it enables her to explore the effects of surveillance on individuals in terms of their compliance with it. 'almost always framed in terms of crime prevention (now very much extended to terrorism prevention) and privacy rights' (2). widely recognised as a pioneer of surveillance studies. Surveillance Studies). 'There seemed to be no code. He could not get into his own apartment. as Merrick is so accustomed to being surveilled that the Oysters' lack of such technology produces in him feelings of anxiety and destabilisation. who contends that a primary goal of surveillance is 'social sorting' (Surveillance Society. through the repeated use of 'no' and emphasis on what is missing ('no code. That surveillance operates by targeting specific groups is crucial to the work of David Lyon. ['height' refers to the level of the building] without pausing for the doors to recognise him. The subject of surveillance is intimately connected to race. The 'crime prevention' aspect of surveillance involves monitoring 'suspicious' subjects . 'suspicion is often dependent on skin colour' (22). . Through Merrick's focalisation. no scanner. no key. the impact of surveillance on subjectivity is explored . even into his own height. When Merrick first enters the Briease Moss (the Inglish Reserve) with Frida. He looked round for an eye but if one existed it was very well concealed' (156).and this is achieved by contrasting Merrick's own experience of surveillance with the absence of surveillance that he encounters while on the Inglish Reserve. an aboriginal dancer he has befriended. Instead of demonising surveillance technology as a form of excessive and unjust social control. no key. Sci-Fi Solvency – A2 Cede the Political Science fiction is a lens to analyze politics of the present Weldes 2003 – Senior Lecturer, Bristol University; PhD (Minn) (Jutta, “Popular culture, science fiction, and world politics: exploring inter textual relations” in “To seek out new worlds: science fiction and world politics” ed. Weldes, Palgrave Macmillan 2003, 10-11) SF offers an exceptionally useful focus for analysis because it concerns itself quite self-consciously with political issues; it directly addresses issues like technological and social change, confronting contemporary verities with possible alternatives . For instance, SF often extrapolates into the future. 11 As a strategy, extrapolation is “based on the metonymical extension of the ends of reality” (Stockwell, 1996: 5). That is, it starts with the known and projects or expands some part of it into the unknown. SF texts, in this sense, “reflect where this present is heading, both in terms of how they envisage the future but also as cognitive spaces that help to shape and direct how people conceive and make the future” (Kitchin and Kneale, 2001: 32). Utopias, for instance, tell us something about what we hope the future will be, dystopias something about what we fear it might be. Dystopias, of course, extrapolate negatively from contemporary trends. As a result, they often provide themes directly critical of contemporary world politics. William Gibson’s “Sprawl” series 12 is a good example. Rooted in a 1980s perception that the state was declining at the expense of multinational corporations (MNCs), it portrays a genuinely globalized future in which states have been eclipsed by cyberspace, global corporations, and global organized crime. The global market is dominated by the Yakuza and MNCs: “Power... meant corporate power. The zaibatsus, the multinationals that shaped the course of human history, had transcended old barriers. Viewed as organisms, they had attained a kind of immortality” (1984: 242). Both Yakuza and MNCs are “hives with cybernetic memories, vast single organisms, their DNA coded in silicon” (242). Technology has run rampant. This is a world of body and mind “invasion” (Sterling, 1986: xii); a world of prosthetic limbs (Gibson, 1984: 9); eyes —“sea-green Nikon transplants”—that are “vatgrown” (33); and a cyborg dolphin, “surplus from the last war” and a heroin addict (Gibson, 1981: 23). Through such dystopias, we can criticize the trends of contemporary politics. In Mike Davis’s words: “William Gibson... has provided stunning examples of how realist, ‘extrapolative’ science fiction can operate as prefigurative social theory, as well as an anticipatory opposition politics to the cyber-fascism lurking over the horizon” (1992: 3). SF tells us about the present. As Ronnie Lipschutz notes later in this volume, SF never really is about the future: “It is about us and the world in which we live.” William Gibson agrees: “What’s most important to me,” he has explained, “is that it’s about the present.... It’s a way of trying to come to terms with the awe and terror inspired in me by the world in which we live” (in Kitchin and Kneale, 2001: 31). This is because SF “presents syntagmatically developed possible worlds, as models (more precisely as thoughtexperiments) or as totalizing and thematic metaphors ” (Suvin, 1988: 198). These possible worlds allow us to explore elements of contemporary society in more or less estranged settings. SF of the 1950s and 1960s, for example, used myriad future scenarios to explore the consequences and possible ramifications of nuclear war. With its focus on alternative worlds, SF can “accommodate radical doubt and questioning ” (Davies, 1990: 4), thus providing space to interrogate contemporary politics. More important, of course, Science fiction scenarios solve all the advantages of public policy better than their framework does—sci fi provides a corrective on short-term politics and improves predictions and risk analysis MILLER AND BENNETT 2008 - Associate Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Associate Director and CoPI of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, and Chair of the PhD Program in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology at Arizona State University. He is also a Senior Fellow in the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering from Cornell University AND PhD in biochemistry from Arizona State University in 2003 and today is an Assistant Research Professor in the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes and the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (October, Clark A. and Ira, “ Thinking longer term about technology: is there value in science fiction-inspired approaches to constructing futures? ” Science and Public Policy, 35(8), Ebsco) most important project may be to try to identify mechanisms through which science fiction could be meaningfully integrated into society’s practices and institutions for public engagement and technology assessment . This will not be easy. American political culture is deeply oriented toward the present, especially with regard to Over time, the the framing of its regulatory gaze. As highlighted by the dissenting opinions to the recent Supreme Court ruling US regulatory culture is founded on the axiom that only harms that are actual or imminent are generally subject to regulation and redress . Thinking prospectively about the kinds of technological risks we may face in the future is, at best, not central to the framing of US risk assessment or technology assessment enterprises. And yet, it would seem that finding ways to be more future-oriented would add substantial value to our assessment processes. In some cases, growing attention is being given within assessments to the practice of scenario-building — which in many ways is a form of science fiction writing. Judicious mixing of science fiction writing sensibilities into scenario writing practices could substantially enhance the public engagement possibilities associated with scenarios. This fact was recognized by the Millennium Ecosystem forcing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, Assessment, a major international scientific assessment, which used drama to communicate scenarios to a range of science fiction can be more than just a communication tool. Citizens could be given new opportunities to contribute creatively to assessments through science fiction writing exercises, perhaps working with scenarios, perhaps in other ways. Experiments with citizens writing scenarios in an ecological assessment conducted by the University of Wisconsin showed that these methods have considerable power in facilitating citizen buy-in to the assessment process, results, and policy recommendations. They also shaped the scenarios in publics in Africa. We should learn from this experience. But directions unexpected by the expert participants. Likewise, as a forerunner to a formal assessment process — such as the UK GM Nation exercise, where citizens were asked to meet and dialogue about their preferences with regard to genetically modified organisms — writers might be asked to develop multiple stories and dialogues that could be shared with the public alongside more technical reports. Politics is influenced by SF – academics ought to analyze political representations of scientific futures Weldes 2003 – Senior Lecturer, Bristol University; PhD (Minn) (Jutta, “Popular culture, science fiction, and world politics: exploring inter textual relations” in “To seek out new worlds: science fiction and world politics” ed. Weldes, Palgrave Macmillan 2003, 1-5) Why examine science fiction if we are interested in world politics ? On the face of it, there seems to be little relation between the two. World politics, common sense tells us, is first and foremost about life-and-death issues: war and peace, ethnic cleansing and genocide, the global spread of AIDS, refugees, natural disasters, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and counter-terrorism, global trafficking in arms, drugs, and human beings, famines, free trade, rapacious corporations, World politics is serious business; it is difficult policy choices and intractable differences of opinion in “a domain of hard truths, material realities, and irrepressible natural facts” (Ó globalization. Tuathail and Agnew, 1992: 192). Science fiction, in contrast, is precisely fictional. It is make-believe, and we read it, watch it, argue about it, and poach on it for fun. 1 As everyone knows, science fiction (or SF) deals with imagined futures, alien landscapes, bizarre cityscapes, sleek ships for traveling through space, improbable machines for escaping time, encounters with fantastic creatures from other worlds or our own future, and radical transformations of societies and their inhabitants. Its hallmark, writes Darko Suvin, is “an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (1979: 9) that, through strategies like extrapolation The apparent great divide between the “hard truths” of world politics and the imagined worlds of SF is deceiving, however. The dividing line between world politics’ material realities and natural facts and the fictional worlds and imaginative possibilities of SF is far from clear. For instance: • NASA/Star Trek: As Constance Penley has shown, a pervasive connection exists and estrangement, helps us to transcend our mundane environment. So what is the connection to world politics? between the discourse of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and that of Star Trek (1997: 4; see also Nichols, 1994). It is perhaps best illustrated in the naming of the first U.S. space shuttle. Initially to be called The Constitution, it was in fact christened The Enterprise— in honor of Star Trek’s flagship— after U.S. President Gerald Ford, in the wake of a letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans, directed NASA to change the name (18– 19). This same U.S. space shuttle Enterprise then found its way back to Star Trek: it appears in the succession of ships called Enterprise shown in the montage that opens each episode of the fifth Star Trek series, Enterprise. 2 SDI/Star Wars: On March 23, 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan delivered a nationwide television address calling for research into defenses that could “intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies,” thus rendering “nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete” (Reagan, 1983). The next day, SDI critics in the U.S. Congress lampooned Reagan’s vision of a defensive military umbrella, successfully relabeling it “Star Wars” after George Lucas’s block-buster SF movie (1977) (Smith, nd.). Hiroshima/Locksley Hall: U.S. President Harry Truman’s decision to drop the newly developed atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was apparently influenced by his belief that demonstrating the power of an “ultimate superweapon” could end the war. Truman had copied 10 lines from Tennyson’s poem Locksley Hall— lines that depict “ultimate aerial superweapons for the future, waging a terrible climactic war in the skies” (Franklin, 1990a: 157)—and carried them in his wallet for 35 years. In July 1945, realizing that he was about to gain control over just such a superweapon, Truman “pulled that now faded slip of paper from his wallet, and recited those lines... to a reporter” (ibid.). 3 Globalization/Spaceship Earth: The Economist depicts liberal globalization using many SF references. In particular, the magazine is awash in images of “spaceship Earth.” This ubiquitous trope constructs the increasingly globalized world as, on the one hand, “a sin gle totality, ‘the global village,’ making it appear easily accessible” while, on the other hand, positioning it “out there” on “the final frontier” of space (Hooper, 2000: 68). For The Economist, liberal globalization is made sensible “through imagery which integrates science, technology, business, and images of globalisation into a kind of entrepreneurial frontier masculinity, in which capitalism meets science fiction” (65). The Revolution in Military Affairs/future war fiction : The socalled Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) might better be called “military science fiction.” This ideology of the technological fix, championed in both official military futurology (e.g., U.S. Army’s Army Vision 2010 or U.S. Space Command’s Vision for 2020) and in a broader corpus of think tank projections (e.g., Shukman, 1996; O’Hanlon, 2000; Metz, 2000), aims to transform threat perceptions and the technological, doctrinal, and organizational basis of warfare. The RMA, however, tells us less about the future of warfare than about “contemporary cultural obsessions and the continuing influence of powerful historical concerns, pre-occupations, the RMA is better understood not as a rational response to objective changes in military technology or the geo-strategic environment but as a cultural artifact powerfully shaped by enduring SF fantasies of future war, such that official military futurology mirrors SF’s characteristic “anxieties, desires, fears, fetishes, insecurities, and cognitive and affective predispositions” (10). Neo-liberal globalization/Foundation : The neo-liberal discourse of fixations, and desires” (Latham, 2001: 9). In fact, globalization dominating public discussion is a self-fulfilling prophecy (Hay and Marsh, 2000: 9) that rests on a well-rehearsed set of narratives and tropes, including an Enlightenment commitment to progress, the wholesome role of global markets, a rampant technophilia, the trope of the “global village,” and the interrelated narratives of an increasingly global culture and an expanding this discourse displays striking homologies to American techno-utopian SF (exemplified in Isaac Asimov’s classic Foundation novels [1951, 1952, 1953, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1993]). These homologies help to render neo-liberal globalization both sensible and seemingly “inexorable” (Gray, 1998: 206). Moreover, underlying Asimov’s Foundation universe lies a barely concealed authoritarian politics that alerts us to the covertly, but nonetheless demonstrably, un-democratic character of globalization and contemporary global governance. While some of the connections between world politics and SF illustrated here pacific liberal politics. As I’ve argued elsewhere (Weldes, 2001), are superficial, others are more deeply rooted. For example, explicit references might be made from one domain to the other. NASA poaches from Star Trek, while SDI’s critics attempt to dismiss it as Star Wars (but even these relations turn out to be more complex). deeper relations exist. Globalization and claims to a “global village” are made commonsensical through space-based images of “Spaceship Earth” that, although they became practically possible only in 1966, when the first photographs taken in outer space showed “planet Earth as one location ” (Scholte, 1997: 16– 17), have long been a staple of SF. Similarly, in hoping that his new “superweapon” would bring an end to World War II, Truman In other cases, was no different from many of his compatriots, “who had grown up in a cultural matrix bubbling with fantasies of ultimate weapons.” fantasies, Franklin explains, profoundly shaped “the nation’s conceptions of nuclear weapons and responses to them, decades before they materialized” (1990a: 157; 1988). A long history of fantastic enemies and sophisticated high-tech wars — from H. G. Wells’ The War Such of the Worlds (1898), through Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959), to Roland Emmerich’s film Independence Day (1996)— renders desirable a future of militarized security seemingly attainable through advanced weapons and information warfare. Conversely, SF is rife with references to wars, empires, diplomatic intrigue, and so forth— the very stuff of world politics. The first chapter of the 1954 edition of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, 4 for instance, makes direct reference to contemporary politics. The context is explicitly the cold war, “the cleavage between East and West” (2). The U.S. carrier James Forrestal searches for Russian submarines off the Pacific island launch site of the Columbus, soon to be headed for Mars; the U.S. space program is spurred on by new intelligence that “the Russians are nearly level with us” (2); a Russian gloats that “In another month we will be on our way, and the Yankees will be choking themselves then. or by displacement. and world politics: exploring inter textual relations” in “To seek out new worlds: science fiction and world politics” ed. overlap at such fundamental metaphysical levels. “Popular culture. across the SF/world politics intertext. the possibilities for community. are more numerous and more complex than is generally assumed. This is especially true of scholars of world politics or “International Relations. Weldes. 15-16) Crucial here is not only the reproduction. . 2000: 2). The language of “inter-text” subtly implies that different texts are produced in different spaces/times/cultures.with rage” (3). including historical and contemporary events. 18 These are the easiest relations to illustrate but. but they share deeply rooted assumptions . although central to the production of common sense. But if these texts already significant aspect of the SF/world politics intertext. Their structural homologies. and back again. the possibilities of knowing the Self. this intimate relationship has rarely been examined. then the notion of an “intertext” relies too heavily on an ontology of difference. science fiction.” eschewing both the depths of low politics and the shallows of a frivolous popular culture. Bristol University. from SF to world politics. or spaceship Earth . make explicit reference to. The SF/world politics intertext— as the RMA or cyberspace shows— has no clear beginning or end. or the Other. These different texts then have an interface: they meet and relate to one another . the character of knowledge. although we live in a time when “the political and the cultural can no longer be decoupled” (Dean. If it is unusual for popular culture in general to be studied in connection with world politics. extend to their most basic assumptions: the nature of Self and Other. by design. “Whether by neglect. As Cynthia Weber put it: the politics of the popular is among the most under-valued and therefore under-analyzed aspects of international politics ” (2001: 134). Instead. there is an endless circulation of meanings from world politics to SF. it is even more so for world politics and SF to be studied together.” who have generally devoted their attention to “high politics. The relations between SF and world politics. and poach on politics. of similar images— whether of cyberspace. The analyses in this volume. Curiously. the post-modern city. PhD (Minn) (Jutta. Many works of SF begin with. in other words. Palgrave Macmillan 2003. situations. highlight aspects of a world that is already fully present. Quite different texts— the constituent elements of the SF/world politics intertext— do get produced. Politics and SF are coproductive – impossible to analyze politics without its SF undercurrents Weldes 2003 – Senior Lecturer. and characters from world politics. never really new. the nature of and relations between good and evil. Both SF texts and the texts of world politics are grounded in the same reservoir of cultural meanings . then. they are not ultimately the most what renders this intertext so crucial to our understanding of world politics is the deep metaphysical— epistemological and ontological— overlap across its constituent texts. Instead. For the purposes of this chapter. movement. dictatorship. Senior Lecturer.Process > Product Science fiction overall is good—the mode of storytelling is more important than the narrative details of our story Whitehall 2003 – Associate Professor. we cannot rely on science fiction only as a meditation on contemporary fiction will be treated as a genre of the beyond. Political Science. its themes are often restricted to sterile liberal constructions (i.Sci-Fi Solvency . equality. This genre has appeal because the modern political imaginary is so deeply committed to a singular reified world political performance. and exploitation vs.’ in “To seek out new worlds: science fiction and world politics” ed. Acadia University (Geoffrey. Bristol University. This may be a blessing in disguise. in fact. freedom vs. “The problem of the ‘world and beyond. It is fair to say that science fiction does not necessarily deal substantively with the complexities of world politics. science . and the beyond within the problematic of sovereignty . the political appears in the different usages of the beyond and not in the specific details of a story’s narrative dilemmas. Although provocative. This performance endlessly secures and manages change. 173) Science fiction can help us think about how the beyond can be used to reimagine the performances of world politics and the limits of the political . Palgrave Macmillan 2003. Weldes. On this view. political problems. What is said is less interesting than how the beyond is used. democracy vs.. self-determination) that this chapter seeks to displace.e. 54-63. Le Guin describes science fic. preserving the status quo. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory. I am not predicting. Dick) that the Allies lost the sec-ond world war. andIt) cyborgs were programmed to acquire emotions and desires and to be selfideologi. they invent lies-fictions-to represent "reality" and to present "truth.cal way) simple prediction. believes that science fiction is not about the future. Much science fiction can be read in such "thought experiment" terms. No. JSTOR) Sociology often has an eye to the future. “Science Fiction and Introductory Sociology: The "Handmaid" in the Classroom. 1996).cism and sociological principles derived from "real" life to the world of what is. . I'm merely observing in the peculiar. Despite the apparent futuristic quality of The Left Hand of Darkness (set in Ekumenical Year 1490-97 and peopled by androgynes). elaborately circumstantial lies (1976).. and thought-experimental manner proper to science fiction." As sociology teachers using SF. I am describing.” Teaching Sociology.. fiction." (Le Guin 1976). on the surface. which is by inventing SF authors thus create striking and un. She. pp. Le Guin argues. is not about the future or about prediction . that if you look at us at certain odd times of day in certain weathers. 1 (Jan. What if (Margaret Atwood asks in The Handmaid's Tale) some group wanted to take over the United States? How could they accomplish it? What if (Marge Piercy asks in He. aside from the future setting of its stories.usual thought experiments. But science fiction.tion as "a thought experiment. it is descriptive and speculative. correct. let's say this or that is such and so. Rather. 24.Framework – Fiat = Sci-Fi Fiat is science fiction – the process of imagining “what if” is a subset of the SF genre LAZ 1996 – Associate Professor of Sociology. Vol. University of Southern Maine (Cheryl. in terms of either social change. likewise looks ahead.nous]. we already are [androgy. I am describing certain aspects of psy.chological reality in the novelist's way.ing? What then would differentiate people from machines? Le Guin. Ursula Le Guin contends. let's say (says Philip K.. devious. or prescribing. and see what happens. we create a classroom situation in which we ask students to apply sociological skepti. or (in less an obviously SF. however. Or if someone else could change your sex without your consent once a year. and the social sciences. Vol. in introductory literature course s.sions and written assignments. to me at least. they're telling each other plots. too.ence fiction in the classroom as there are teachers with innovative ideas. to look back at the story and ask yourself "what if. What are some of these basic themes? Reading science fiction is not enough—students must be able to manipulate the stories and apply them to new purposes Woodcock et al. 3. Nov. To brutally reduce the idea I have borrowed from him. If you listen to science work of Jean Piaget. and inventing a planet or spaceship for human use. JSTOR) Some techniques utilized by these teachers in.Framework . If we want students to appreciate something about a concept in physics or in the design fiction. They found that the science fiction short story or novel is particularly adaptable to pedagogical ob. (John C. 6. Alan J. An analysis of the science fiction short story or novel reveals usually that the theme is developed in the context of an action-filled background. John. – students telling each other about literature. either. " You see. we need to let them design some fiction. New York. But SF almost forces you to do this. people will learn it much faster and better if they can manipulate it preferably physically. but cerebral manipulation works.Education SF solves their education claims – research indicates it has pedagogical benefits Reynolds 77 – Associate Professor of Education in the Profes. of an idea. But if those plots are SF plots. Many of the teachers sur. JSTOR) I do have a theoretical overlay which explains. the students begin almost immediately to manipulate them.ing earth through alien eyes. 1977. 1979 – professor at Connecticut State University (November.jectives. And that's why I'm so hopeful that SF may help us in closing the two-cultures gap . Vol. Samuel Delany. why SF can indeed be such a successful tool for teaching both literature to science majors and science to literature majors. December 1978) ” Science Fiction Studies. and characters which the classroom teacher can utilize in discus. No. . “Science Fiction in the 7-12 Curriculum” The Clearing House. . see.tion. . meaningful situations.veyed mentioned the application of science fiction to the study of the social foundations of educa. history. The best thing about SF as an educational tool is that it can be manipulated. I wonder what it would be like if they only changed it once a year. This theoretical overlay is based on the whatever you are trying to teach. as far as I can tell.sional Laboratory Experiences Department of the University of Georgia. you have manipulation That's something we don't permit students to do enough of in introductory science courses or.. 51.. economics. It appears that there are as many basic purposes for utilizing sci. we need to let them manipulate some physics. Gregory Benford. it is that. It goes something like: "I read a neat story somewhere about people who changed their sex every month. Robert Scholes. Friedman. " and to reinvent the story for yourself . No. to manipulate literature. It invites you to manipulate it. to manipulate science.all this being the manipulation which Piaget says encourages people to learn something about unfamiliar topics.cluded building models of cities of the future. 3. “ Teaching Science Fiction: Unique Challenges (Proceedings of the MLA Special Session. Firstly. I read the grief-stricken request of a Black woman who asked that white women call this out and repudiate it. N. even as the men who usually rape us. much more than legislators agreeing to take down the idols of Confederate treason in the South. and against other people of color—rather than as public servants with a lawful duty to every citizen.p. They ask us to call the police in the event of a “suspicious” non-white man in the neighborhood. South Carolina. RH Reality Check’s Director of Online Campaigns. Natasha.” We all know that he meant white women. were set up so white women and children could be “safe” in “good” neighborhoods. They are meant to produce a vicious. so we do.. And we must certainly look at the part of white women in all of this. women. "It's Not Black People Who Need to Change. hateful willingness to destroy whatever a white person can’t “protect” through ownership. ethics begin and end with their own rights to amass property. learned fear that has unleashed such devastating white terrorism on Black communities. Chart 6/30 (Chart. There’s no possible legacy for a society run with such brutality other than mass murder and wanton destruction. The majority of rapes. weeks. are white men. disastrously wrong with how white people tolerate racism among other whites . so that’s why I’m writing. We have to look very hard at every part of our society where we perpetuate the idea that people can own each other. white communities so many of us live in. or longer.) The white terrorist who gunned down six Black women and three Black men. white people are the ones who need to change in the United States. We need to reject the moral authority of anyone whose away with raping non-white women. and many of us enthusiastically bought this story too. how we interact with people of color. and must hold themselves accountable thus creating a shift from white supremacy. whatever he may be doing. and men. This is not something we can fix by promising to renounce racial slurs. And they do. There is something terribly. we are told. White men tell white women to be afraid of Black men. works to make politics user-friendly. since we’ve also been here. because it’s important to emphasize: White men are the ones who are most likely to rape white women.Race Black people are not the ones who need to change – white people are the driving force of racism. and who so often get The tragic massacre of peaceful Black women and men at the AME church is exactly where these attitudes and behaviors were meant to lead. It’s so much simpler for us to believe anything besides the truth. are committed by people known to the victims. especially a Black man. like me. 30 June 2015. we must rid ourselves of the attitudes that got us there .Framework . particular property. But the thing is. “His” women. nor even by promising to correct each other’s racist speech in private. “Good” neighborhoods protected by police forces who are enjoined to act like white people’s personal enforcers—sometimes as agents of terror against Black children. Especially those white men who think of us as their own.org/article/2015/06/30/black-people-need-change/>. insular. If we would not be held responsible for these atrocities. responsive. all along. years of experience in online politics across the progressive blogosphere. That means much. Was it not white women who came in like locusts to loot the homes and businesses after the white male rioters and the National Guard burned Black Wall Street in Tulsa? Was it not white women who would have set out the family’s Sunday best and brought along the picnics for the . Whom else do white women usually know? These segregated. “Good” neighborhoods where the only men around who have the social standing to rape with impunity are white men." RH Reality Check. announced his murderous intentions by first declaring. Every one of us must reject these white supremacist attitudes. peaceful worshippers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. how we interact with the Bla ck Americans whose ancestors were enslaved by our ancestors. We white women have often been eagerly complicit in this false. these claims to ownership over other people’s lives and wellbeing for the gratification of our own ego s. without meeting a single person of color who is presented to us as a peer. Too many of us have bought this slander of Black men. Web. White men have built a parallel society in the United States to keep white women and children in a society where a white person can often go for days. <http://rhrealitycheck. The rot goes deeper. as a white man like him would think of us. like the majority of all crimes. “You rape our women. and accessible. And from the start of Western literature. and simpers. Objects can’t love. and in constant need of rescue by the white male hero. while a first rite of manhood was to claim the authority to shut her up. as many times as it takes. neither was she a free person. When the freed descendants of these enslaved Black women first took up paid labor in white households doing similar work. because their father raped the women he enslaved. Sally Hemings was in fact Martha Jefferson’s half-sister. White men have spent hundreds of years raping Black women in the United States. African-American men have been seen to politely ask their white attackers to stop hurting them even as they were taking their last breaths ? White people would do better to start listening to King’s request of us throughout his life and works. Clementa Pinckney and Rev. A wife is not a slave. They easily extended their hospitality to a complete stranger. people who showed incredible forbearance as cameras were shoved in their faces by white people who were asking for white people must absolutely listen to the requests of the Black community that we stop asking them to act like the Rev. another peaceful Black person murdered by a white supremacist. just like his white supremacist idols who had Have Black people not been terrorized over the last few hundred years into a meekness toward white people that runs so deep. pale with hiding indoors. So we need to call each We must stop forgiving each other’s bad behavior. however improbably. which is often. “Genocide begins. She is necessarily insecure. already knew how to act like that. unaccountable in the innocence of that helplessness. following the example of the dearly beloved Black women and men our nation is in mourning for right now. it was already established that a wife and mother was not even supposed to speak in public. and the last of the laws that stemmed from coverture were stricken down in U. must go. the children of our sisters? In slave-owning white households. she asks. She gives. It doesn’t deny the misogyny we’ve been subjected to for us to acknowledge any of this. It’s a box built for women’s personalities so that white men could believe that we naturally exist as objects for their conquest and ownership. Every one of the AME worshippers died as a model of the kind of person all white people should strive to other to walk away from learned passivity and towards love. That isn’t how it works. As Andrea Dworkin said. in the Jefferson household. under his authority as a good little girl ought to. a hateful man who would sit with them for an hour before gunning them down. in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination. she supports. forgiveness before the bodies were even cold. like the murdered Rev. Black people.” White women have sat for too long as passive spectators to brutality and genocide committed by our own families. we can decide now to end them. and throughout the life and works of the other women and men in the Civil Rights Movement. because we have been full of such false convictions. And we must all learn to be moved from love to act with terrible urgency. courts in the 1970s. as in countless others. and so she acts under permission. meek.S. Martin Luther King. in our names. they could take wives. she was not quite a person at all. it’s a lie that turning ourselves into wish-fulfillment objects for white men will make us safe. Under the doctrine of coverture in English law. whereas no such thing is true. so convincing a lie told about white women by white men that we often come to believe it ourselves. We must give up being objects before we can seek a basic decency greater than that of those who would own us. Before white men could own slaves. upper-class. or asking for forgiveness. Marital rape could not even be conceived of as a crime in white culture until the middle of the 20th century. The slain worshippers lived as a testament to the church’s 200-year-old legacy of standing in fellowship against white supremacist terror. nor can they be loved. How long did it take after the fall of Jim Crow for white women to even begin to think of mourning murdered Black children as if they were our own nieces and nephews. And where we cling to these myths from fear. In the aftermath of white supremacist terrorism. be. was it not also white women who made the lives of the enslaved Black women around them miserable and sometimes unimaginably tragic out of jealousy. except the blur of menial tasks and social obeisance. things witnessed from a remove. It’s not Black people in the United States who need to change. as an act of modesty and humility in honor of the family patriarch. Instead of acting. she reacts. Because this fantasy of our “natural” passivity. She is quiet. From the social fantasy of the model. but in much of historical white culture. . that we learn to listen to and love our Black sisters and brothers. I hope my son will want to grow up to be like them. I hope he will be like the loved ones they left behind. because what can she do? Yet while white women can be trained into creating a convincing simulacrum of such a person. that has never been anyone’s authentic self. white wife comes the ideal of the passivity of white women. helping hide the truth behind victimblaming stereotypes of hypersexual Black women. Even if we did not start them. White women have long refused to face this. She is helpless.lynchings that can be seen in those old postcards? We were there. That murdered other Black people they could not own or control. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. instead of seeing the rape of their sisters and finding a way to act from compassion? Indeed. they were often still subject to the same threat of rape by white men and treated with scarcely more compassion by white women. and insist on change. Only love can make people truly safe with each other. The deadly present crisis of white racist brutality toward the Black community demands it. The story she remembers of her own life is a story of things done around or near or to her. and loves. Just as we have refused to face that we often have more to fear from the white men who live with us than dark-skinned strangers walking down the street. when we met at the airport. As a teaching artist in Boston public schools and a former high school English teacher just outside Washington DC. Hours later.” For my entire life. felt the only thing he could do was leave. I was going to go to jail. This decision. local policies have existed since 1910 to isolate the city’s black population. My students are black and brown. and our hearts filled with rage and despair. Institutions. Do your part to put an end to the evil of white supremacy so that we can all live together in peace and dignity. The news came on the eve of a long-planned school trip to France. Instead of teaching to escape we should discuss why that escape is needed in the first place Smith. we did escape. aged 24. a literary hero of mine. I was reminded of the American writer James Baldwin. I have watched the residue of federally-sanctioned redlining create small apartheids in cities for decades. he claims. then at least to each other. South Carolina. With all of that said. When we arrived in Paris. “Teach black students they can change communities they don't have to escape”. for example. and doctoral candidate in education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture.theguardian. it must be rejected and extinguished as a matter of deliberate intent . “It wasn’t so much a matter of choosing France – it was a matter of getting out of America. and Society (CIS). I was going to kill somebody or be killed. I’ve seen how the violence against people of color in the past year has left many in fear that their lives are in perpetual danger. I have watched food insecurity and unequal access to healthy meals saturate black communities with diabetes and heart disease at disproportionate rates. if not to the rest of the world.” he said in a 1984 interview with the Paris Review. It should be clear by now that this ideology won’t just fade away in time with the old. our minds spun with disillusionment. It helps no one to wallow in shame or guilt. http://www. poet. “My luck was running out.com/teacher-network/2015/jul/07/teach-black-studentschange-communities-not-escape?CMP=share_btn_fb. To the present day federal housing subsidy policies still result in low-income black families being segregated from richer neighbourhoods. a part of me struggles to accept that Baldwin. the . Tuesday July 7 2015 TAM) When my students and I found out about the shooting of nine black people in Charleston. living in communities that have been subjected to generations of underinvestment and discrimination. generating breeding grounds for crime and poverty. 15 (Clint Smith is a teacher. His departure from Harlem in 1948.we make white society decent and humane at long last . In Baltimore. When I discuss Baldwin with my students. we hugged one another and exchanged words – a reminder that we mattered. saved his life. our breath was pulled from our lungs. I have watched the realities of racism slowly kill those around me. Act in honor of the beloved dead. As it happened. We wanted to escape. with only $40 (£25) in his pocket was an attempt to escape the pernicious racism of the US. What is white fear of the “angry” Black person besides a worry that we will be held to account for the merciless slander and persecution of Black people by whites that each and every white person bears responsibility for tolerating as if it were not a deadly emergency? We must do everything we can to put an end to white supremacist attitudes. Americans often define racism singularly as direct verbal or physical abuse. While systemic injustice is suffocating and can often seem immutable.questions surrounding his departure inevitably arise. one he had the right to – one they have the right to as well. But we must engage our students honestly. As someone not currently living in my own hometown of New Orleans. As teachers. Education. or to have value. I tell them it is a choice he made. and continue to be. It is not as simple as telling our students to stay. or any other city across the country. It is a difficult yet necessary conversation. things can change. as educators. administrators and others propagate a “do well so you can leave this place” narrative. however. That is different. should not have to dream of escaping their neighborhood to make a meaningful life for him or herself. This is a message already deeply embedded in the social fabric of schools in poor communities. and remind them that we are the architects of the world we live in. I am not sure anyone can be faulted for desiring to escape a paradigm in which your humanity. I have witnessed this in the schools where I have taught and been on the receiving end of it growing up. Teachers. left out of the literary and historical canons. . This does not mean adding a perfunctory Martin Luther King Jr speech to be skimmed over during Black History Month. In the midst of these conversations. We cannot discuss what the confederate flag represents without also wrestling with what it means that many of our founding fathers owned slaves. gives students the option to make a life however and wherever they choose. is to escape. Detroit. That. in part. is only one way it manifests itself. however. however. to defining one’s ambition or dreams by how far removed they are from the places of their childhood. must directly address the realities that cause them to want to leave in the first place. How will our communities ever grow into their true potential if we continue to tell our most successful students to leave? And still. are both questioned and assaulted. so that we might better push back against it as we move forward. at its best. I even wonder to what extent I internalised such a message as a child. That is what I try to tell my students. We. We cannot discuss what led Dylann Roof to take the lives of nine innocent black people as they prayed inside their church with students unless we also discuss our country’s history of racial violence. New Orleans. This means holistically broadening the range of texts we expose our students to and having them interrogate why certain voices have been. I do not want to suggest to my students that the only way to be successful. This. No. It does not mean reading the only writer of color in the curriculum and analyzing their work devoid of any historical context. Perhaps then we can collectively re-create our reality so that one day no one is forced to “escape”. A child in Chicago. and your body. means we must discuss racism candidly – both the interpersonal and the systemic. That is what I would have wanted my teachers to tell me. These are not loosely tied phenomena. we have a responsibility to our students to provide a more holistic and honest definition of what racism is in this country. they are intrinsically linked realities and shape the country we live in. the surrogate of the sovereign. British imperial visuality was organized by an army of missionaries bringing light to darkness by means of the Word. queer. Culture and Communication at New York University "The Right to Look. which visualizes history to sustain autocratic authority.3 (2011): 473-96.) Here I want to advance my claim first by offering a conceptual framework to think with and against visuality and Visuality’s first domains were the slave plantations. visual culture theorist and professor in the Department of Media. Spring 2011." Critical Inquiry 37. visualizing was the hallmark of the modern general as the battlefield became too extensive and complex for any one person physically to see .pdf>. monitored by the surveillance of the overseer. visualizing is the production of visuality. Despite its oddities. Nicholas. the general in modern warfare as practiced and theorized by Karl von Clausewitz was responsible for visualizing the battlefield. Carlyle. Web. This visualizing was the attribute of the Hero and him alone.com/RTL/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/RTLfrom-CI. Soon after this moment. Working on information supplied then by applying it to today’s permanent crisis of visuality. or trans. by subalterns—the new lowest ranked officer class created for this purpose—and his own ideas and images. in tension with the right to look that has been variously depicted as feminine. actively imagining themselves to be heroic subjects. Then from the late eighteenth century onward.8 The fascist leaders of twentieth-century Europe claimed direct inspiration from today’s counterinsurgency doctrine indirectly relies on strategies of local and remote visualization.7 Visuality was held to be masculine. while . visuality was named as such in English by Thomas Carlyle in 1840 to refer to In this form. what he called the tradition of heroic leadership. the interface of Carlyle’s appropriation of the revolutionary hero and his visualizing of history as permanent war with the military strategy of visualization has had a long legacy. This sovereign surveillance was reinforced by violent punishment and sustained a modern division of labor. While Carlyle’s idea of mystical leadership was not a practical form of organization. <http://nicholasmirzoeff.Surveillance Key Surveillance and Visualities Roots being in the Plantation – This discussion is key Mirzeoff ’11 (Mirzoeff. lesbian. University of Chicago Press. meaning the making of the processes of history perceptible to authority. that's alright) They be like." and get down I heard this life is just a play with no rehearsal I wonder will this be my final act tonight And tell me what's the price of fame? Am I a sinner with my skirt on the ground? Am I a freak for dancing around? . and get down They call us dirty 'cause we break all your rules down And we just came to act a fool. is that all right (Girl.E." But we eat wings and throw them bones on the ground Am I a freak for dancing around? (queen) Am I a freak for getting down? (queen) I'm cutting up. cut me up." (feat. "Ooh. let them eat cake." And I just tell 'em. don't cut me down Yeah I wanna be. wanna be (queen) Is it peculiar that she twerk in the mirror? And am I weird to dance alone late at night? And is it true we're all insane? And I just tell 'em.E.N. she's serving face.Song/Lyrics "Q.U. Erykah Badu) I can't believe all of the things they say about me Walk in the room they throwing shade left to right They be like. "Ooh. "No we ain't. so duh I can't take it no more Baby. Badu Crazy in the black and white .Am I a freak for getting down? I'm cutting up. don't cut me down Any yeah I wanna be. we in tuxedo groove Pharaohs and E. wanna be (queen) Hey brother can you save my soul from the devil? Say is it weird to like the way she wear her tights? (but I like it) And is it rude to wear my shades? Am I a freak because I love watching Mary? (maybe) Hey sister am I good enough for your heaven? Say will your God accept me in my black and white? Will he approve the way I'm made? Or should I reprogram the program and get down? Am I a freak for dancing around?(queen) Am I a freak for getting down?(queen) I'm cutting up. don't cut me down And yeah I wanna be wanna be (queen) Even if it makes others uncomfortable I wanna love who I am Even if it makes others uncomfortable I will love who I am Shake 'til the break of dawn Don't mean a thing. But when it's time pay they turn around and call us needy. My crown too heavy like the Queen Nefertiti Gimme back my pyramid. Well I'm gonna keep leading like a young Harriet Tubman You can take my wings but I'm still goin' fly . the booty don't lie Yeah Yeah. So why ain't the stealing of my rights made illegal? They keep us underground working hard for the greedy. She who writes the movie owns the script and the sequel. Let's flip it I don't think they understand what I'm trying to say I asked a question like this Are we a lost generation of our people? Add us to equations but they'll never make us equal. the booty don't lie Oh no. here comes the freedom song Too strong we moving on Baby this melody Will show you another way Been tryin' for far too long Come home and sing your song But you gotta testify Because the booty don't lie No. Mixing masterminds like your name Bernie Grundman. no.We got the drums so tight Baby. I'm trying to free Kansas City. keep singing and I'mma keep writing songs I'm tired of Marvin asking me. I defy every label And while you're selling dope. "What's Going On?" March to the streets 'cause I'm willing and I'm able Categorize me. will you sleep? Or will you preach? https://www. you gotta deal you gotta cope Will you be electric sheep? Electric ladies.youtube. we're gonna keep selling hope We rising up now.com/watch?v=tEddixS-UoU .And even when you edit me the booty don't lie Yeah. NEG . the critic is on unfamiliar ground in discussing the Canadian setting of Brown Girl in the Ring (1999). No. territorial arrogation arises among several contributors. anti-realist identity politics that seeks not to overcome alienation but to deepen it as a mode of resistance to hegemonic ontologies. while presumably unintended. this kind of presumptive. 245). McCutcheon 2011 (Mark A. Only Dubey connects the magic-infused speculative fiction of black women writers with Paul Gilroy as well as Toni Mor. who reading of mother figures in the subject authors' novels. notwithstanding the overall perspicacity of Rogan's reading of Hopkinson according to the globalized continuities of postcolonial cultures and neoliberal hegemony. cf. A salutary illustration of the collection's U. supplies the defining and exemplary national site of Afro-Futurist production (Youngquist 183). ix. . or Rose (among others). Afro-Futurism's alienating effects thus take aim equally at In other words. Associate Professor. The collection shares this kind of arrogation with Dery and Nelson. who both simply assume the U. nonetheless tends more to suppress than to enable a dialogue with Afro-Futurism—an effect exacerbated by the editor's insistent selfpositioning as a "pioneer" in this field (251. in Hopkinson 's inscribes them nevertheless in "African-American involvement in fantastic fiction" (119). Rogan builds an insightful case) is only mentioned in passing by Kilgore (120). PhD.S. McCutcheon. in descriptions of sf as an unproblematically American literature. a technocratic modern society founded on white capitalist patriarchy and the racialized terrors of slavery.-centric assumptions occurs in Rogan's essay on Due and Hopkinson. On this premise. Review: “Debating the Histories and Futures of Black SF” Published in Extrapolation Vol. the collec-tion frequently arrogates black Atlantic writers to black American contexts. conspicuous absence here of any references to Eshun. Nelson. That colonialist figuring) relates the collection's Hopkinson and some contributors to Mojo are African-Canadian (or African-Caribbean-Canadian.rison (35). So the consistent. In Afro-Future Females. Athabasca University. However. 2) Afro-Futurism produces a kind of cyborg. Rogan reads their representations of "the reproduction of mothering" according to a provocative historical-materialist premise: that "the master/slave dialectic… reinscribe[s] itself in the relation of the black woman to capitalist patriarchy… victimized by institutionalized neglect rather than by the close scrutiny she bore as an object of property” (77).Afrofuturism Bad – US Focus Afrofuturism’s unquestioning use of the United States as a central site and science fiction as a genre reinscribes racial oppression.S. English. This misreading of a provincial government leader as Canada's head of state costs Rogan's argument a relevant point about globalization: the provincial political setting makes the novel legible as a satire on Ontario's hard right turn in the mid-1990s under the neoconserva-tive regime of whose antagonist Rogan describes as "Canada's Premier Uttley" (90). and at the dominant forms of subjectivity such a society has engendered. 52. and in related assumptions about black American culture as tacit synecdoche for Other black diasporic cultures around the Atlantic or around the world. Henton invokes "diaspora" only to describe the African-American imagination (110) and the diversities of sf form (101). Barr's editorial self-positioning (with its problematically highly selective representation of Afro-Futurist history to a similarly selective representation of its territorial ambit: that is. in creating a thesis that emphasizes the innovatory futurism of techno. rides roughshod over the sensitivities of the black American racial and personal subjectivity of Atkins. recasting Europe as a post-industrial sanctuary. . music technology and media and cultural studies since 1991. Vol 24. I Disconnect From You” Numan’. and has been involved in electronic music making since the mid-1980s. TAM) Cosgrove.. no disrespect was intended to the symbolic achievements of Gordy.. Published in 2005 as 'Post Soul Futurama: African American cultural politics and early Detroit Techno' in European Journal of American Culture.. and Atkins very specifically acknowledges the key role of electronic and synthesizer experimentation by Bernie Worrell (Funkadelic) and early 1970s Stevie Wonder in his music. Furthermore. explicitly and contemptuously refused community with Motown and motorcity gospel [in favour of] Gary “Me. He has lectured in popular music studies.Premier Mike Harris. Afrofuturism masks Eurocentrism and colonial oppression Albiez. No 2. to cast European electronic music as an escape route for black musicians from the USA’s racially antagonistic environment is to create a comforting story that perhaps helps European writers excise memories of the colonial enslavement of Africans. 05 (Sean Albiez is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at Southampton Solent University. This controversial thesis lingered in later writing on techno. which so drastically slashed social programs and attacked minoritized groups that Hopkinson's image of downtown Toronto as a gutted inner city reads more like a shrewd urban-planning projection than a postapocalyptic dystopia. 2005. with Sinker stating ‘Techno .39 Though there is some evidence to suggest Numan was more important musically to Juan Atkins than Motown. art and literature evolve from. are the system. a philosopher. . It’s basically a hall of mirror s. Print. deconstruction. I guess that many people outside of the arts have awakened to the day and age and moved on. a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". NY: Mark Batty. or philosophy itself)”—but only by sleight of hand (which is sampling. which does not die and outlives its progenitors (like jazz. even that can be interesting sometimes. and an author The Book of Ice.) Every movement has its sell-by date. I speak of AfroFuturism in the past tense because I think that the culture at large caught up to and bypassed many of the issues it was dealing with. a smoke and fog routine in a middle brow cheap magic show. and I think it missed certain pressure points in the flow of how culture evolves in this day and age . Sure.Solvency AfroFuturism outdated and no longer works as a movement – it is open ended and message is ambiguous depending on the person Miller ’11 (Miller. But hey. I think that there were a lot of flaws in the way that Afro-Futurism unfolded. It was conceptually open ended without any kind of narrative. It wasn’t digital enough.. Forget the idea of the “permanent underclass” that people like Greg Tate (no disrespect) kept pushing.. hip-hop. 2011. Paul D. Forget the idea that blacks are outside of any system—we It seemed like Afrofuturism just didn’t have a cohesive situation to have music. it didn’t have a core group of people with any kind of coherent message. Brooklyn. Afrofuturism can be used. as you put it to be a “descriptor of a body of knowledge. He is a turntablist.Afrofuturism Bad . a producer. anyway). People tend to like that kind of thing. afrofuturism offers a novel form of revolution that is rooted in a long history of black opposition”. 2011 http://queeringafrofuturism. He continues further: “ I verse. sex. PhD Candidate in Anthropology of Education at Stanford University where she teaches courses on Black Childhood. however. AH 2011 (From a collection of short posts on the blog of Jakeya Caruthers. still through practice and position reify notions of hetro-patriarchy and sexism. as well as MC’s such as Kool Keith “established the core tenet of anti-anti-essentialist collapsed binaries”. He argues specifically that. though often viewed as a constructed fantasy and sort of post human. “By In J.com/post/6126537901/female-presence-inthe-afro-future) Rollefson’s work “The Robot Voodoo Power Thesis: Afrofuturism and anti-antiargues that afrofuturism. futurist sensibility. In his work Rollefson sites artists that while productive in their audacity to (re)envision and reproduce alter- In all of his examples he presents male-bodied individuals as the leaders of this new wave of cultural thought and progression into the future. Queer Afrofuturism and occasionally guest-lectures on representations of race. band leader for the Arkestra. they do little to renegotiate the history of sexism and erasure that these same histories present (as an opposition) to the project of feminist politics. It is problematic to me that no space.Afrofuturism = Sexist Even if their small selection of 1AC authors cite feminist principals.tumblr. and gender in popular culture. the Afro-Future is overwhelmingly imagined as a male dominated space. Through Rollefson’s reading we find that the female presence is nonexistent in the theorized (and thus archived) afrofuture. of futurist thought through an insistence that he was not of this planet and neither is any black person. has been offered with which to combat the issues of patriarchy and sexism that override our present quests for “Freedom”. June 2. Sexism and the alienation of black woman inevitably dooms the movement. The author notes that Sun-Ra creates a new space through which black people can begin to let go of desires towards equal citizenship through an indoctrination into an alternate world. Griffith essentialism from Sun Ra to Kool Keith” the author stepping out side of the white liberal tradition and rewriting blackness in all its complexity. has “real” productive potential towards the larger project of cultural theory. Her courses have earned her a Middlebrook Prize for Graduate Teaching and a teaching fellowship with Stanford’s Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity. Until the way we think about afro futurism is of blackness/whiteness and the matrix of binaries that are inscribed up this central set.” . that of the uni- and other noted leaders such as George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic. Rollefson highlights the leader’s ability to institute a new wave destinies. Rollefson. The first is the highly noted Sun Ra. imaginary or otherwise. notes that Sun Ra would like to assert that they do have real political efficacy because they problematize the rigid binary Such reimagining works to blur the lines of whiteness and blackness perhaps. where women are imagined in the afro-future they remain fetishized subjects of the male gaze. ze effectively shows how musical effects can be used not just to carry the musician and the spectator to a new space (or an audotopia). James in hir essay on Robo-Diva perhaps best fleshes out this phenomenon. empower themselves. and wear sensational. considering the historical associations of women with witches. However. women’s bodies still continue to be held under the scrutiny of the patriarchal gaze. I almost feel as if ze is glamorizing the radical potential of the robo diva. large-breasted figure – a paragon of beauty unattainable by women. Ze delineates how cyberspace is used by people to experience trans identification with races. often perm their hair. Even with the dawn of third wave feminism. Indeed. This is why . Part of the project of second wave feminism was intentioned creatures it is pretty easy to recognize that women’s bodies reclamation of women’s bodies. diets. she also can be read as a product if a patriarchal regime.inclusive off all black bodies. “to adopt the aesthetic of the robo-diva is to throw in white patriarchy’s face what it ‘different’ than their prescribed ‘bodies. sex. women began to educate themselves about their bodies and. Indeed. Ze reads the work of Beyonce and Rihanna to convey how “afro-futurist robo-diva R&B can be understood as reverse-engineering the body. and self-mutiliation are still issues for I am circumspect of immediately labeling the robo diva a feminist icon. where people are able to experience strength and empowerment in their identities.com/page/4) To begin. Rates of eating disorders. and other ill- – especially women’s menstrual cycles – have been delegitimized by men. skimpy clothing to broadcast their bodies as part of their image. AVM 2011 (From a collection of short posts on the blog of Jakeya Caruthers. While I certainly appreciate James’s reading of these music videos. Her courses have earned her a Middlebrook Prize for Graduate Teaching and a teaching fellowship with Stanford’s Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity. one of the core notions of feminist theory and history is that women’s bodies have been demonized by the patriarchy. but also to construct anew body for the musician. Indeed. -AH And. PhD Candidate in Anthropology of Education at Stanford University where she teaches courses on Black Childhood. I am circumspect at James’s universalizing claim. demons. While I agree that the robo diva can be a feminist figure. the project towards liberation will continue to be stunted. Certainly. penetrative gaze of patriarchy. subversive feminist figure. her cyborg status in many ways bolsters her body. these readings helped me better understand the role of music in complementing or expanding one’s own identity and vision of the world.tumblr. can we not also view this re-configuration and performance of the body as yet another product of a patriarchal capitalist society? James’s analysis features Beyonce and Rihanna without thinking about the type of women and the type of bodies these artists have sought to construct. using music to rewire the way whiteness and patriarchy are programmed into our bodies and structures of feeling” (419). for James. The technology of herself can be said to fortify her from the predatory. and sexualities science fiction texts. Weheliye effectively delineates the politics of the ‘vocoder’ effect and how it has different meanings for black and white people in relation to their perceived humanity (37). in the process. Queer Afrofuturism and occasionally guest-lectures on representations of race. the robo diva is the embodiment of an empowered critique of a white patriarchal regime. From my understanding. Both of these women still aspire toward dominant (white) notions of beauty – they are still ridiculously toned. Foster takes on this notion in hir essay. with books like Our Bodies Ourselves. Indeed. 4/24/2011 http://queeringafrofuturism. Foster depicts cyberspace as a utopian space. I posit that while the robo diva can be read as a reactionary. Both of these women are known for their the women’s rights movement. For James. Depictions of women in media and other public outlets still present a skinny.’ In hir reading of most fears – black women and black femininity not as some ‘redeeming’ path to ‘whole-ness…’ that exists solely for the purpose of nursing white culture and maintaining patriarchal privilege” (417). genders. and gender in popular culture. they can further titillate the male gaze? From the discipline of ecofeminism we learn how the domination and degradation of our earth and natural resources can be read with a comparable framework as the trauma inscribed on the woman’s body and experiences by patriarchy. In this moment I began to recognize – could the reproductive capacity of women simply being appropriated for by the afro-futiuristic impulse for a new world. for a new body? I think it’s important that we approach issues of gender difference within the afro-futuristic project with a critical eye. bodies. Male consumers and fans often comment on how ‘hot’ they are.could the robot diva simply be a fetish of the patriarchal gaze? Have Beyonce and Rihanna figured out that by playing dress up as a robot. It features the dancers dancing in-between the legs of the woman. Is the robo-diva just another one of these tools? Is her cyborg image really an indication of her colonization? In Kanye’s “Love Lockdown” music video alien-inspired tall women stand with their arms at their shoulders as Afrofuturist men dance behind them. I wonder – . we must continue to complicate her politics and presence in order to better understand the feminist implications of afro-futurism. We cannot simply exalt the ‘robo-diva. The camera takes a curious focus. Men have historically used technology to rape the land of its resources. edu/journals/nwsa/summary/v016/16.html Although it has been said before by such leading philosophers as Sandra Harding (1987) and Helen Longino (1987).as incompetent Fehr 04 (Carla is an Associate Professor in Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State University.Feminism The Alt can’t solve. feminist philosophy and feminist science studies. we lose our ability to address current problems within scientific practice. This is not the case. and we don’t investigate ways in which the traditional practice of science can be interrogated and improved. Instead of endorsing a feminist method. feminine manner way in which women think or relate to other people or organize their experiments and their laboratories.jhu. to give credit to women who have fought to succeed as researchers in what continues to be a man’s game. or of a single way that women do (or ought to do) science bears repeating for at least three reasons.1fehr.examining science from a feminist perspective reinforces sterotypes of women. Donna Haraway (1985) has pointed out that feminism and science need to be intertwined if we are to exercise our responsibility for the By drawing a line between women’s science and science itself. This further removes an already marginalized group from mainstream scientific discourse and fails practices and products of science and technology. Second. . Finally. pluralism is an appropriate attitude to take toward feminism and science. we need to guard against essentializing women’s intellectual or cognitive characteristics. Advocating a single feminist science suggests that there is a single.Sci-Fi Bad . the point that feminist theorists do not and should not endorse a single feminist method. She works in the philosophy of biology. Because of the latter two concerns. I hope to create space for a variety of approaches. First. “Feminism and Science: Mechanism Without Reductionism” Spring http://muse. presuppositions of a single feminist science reinforce the cultural stereotype that women can’t do science as it is traditionally construed . scenarios that we are best prepared for the unpredictability of the future. The creativity and imagination inspired by scenarios can only be as effective as it is based in realistic assessments.29 Scenarios are logical. they do not need to be likely. and provide an effective framework for dialogue among a diverse group of stakeholders. They undocked and with a long burst of translation thrusters moved away from the Agena. three features distinguish good scenarios from simple speculations. path dependent predictions of the future. and think creatively about options for surmounting obstacles. By encouraging creative thinking beyond the future we anticipate. But the roll continued to accelerate. Shell was also able to anticipate massive economic and political change in the then USSR in the late 1980s. Huntley. then. It is precisely by considering possible . Scenarios have a timeline over which meaningful change is possible. Instead. context of a number of different futures. build common ground among differing perspectives. perceptions. hideous. 30 Kahn’s motivation was. and think rationally about our options.9 meters of the pre-launched Agena Target Vehicle. Scenarios first emerged following World War II as a method of military planning. and relevant. in part. but the moment he throttled down. believing the simulation was too unlikely to waste their scarce training time and energy on. Armstrong used the Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System thrusters. Kahn wrote in 1966. linear predictions or fanciful musings of the future: Scenarios are decision focused. then slowly accomplished the world’s first orbital docking . US Naval Postgraduate School. or highly unlikely. they started to roll again. Successful scenarios begin and end by clarifying the decisions and actions the participants One common misconception of scenarios is that they are prescient. On the contrary. a planner at the London offices of Royal Dutch/Shell. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. scenarios require us to look behind fixed assumptions. Turning off the Agena seemed to stop the problem for a few minutes. In examining a decision within the must make if they are to deal successfully with an uncertain future.” Space Policy 26) On 16 March 1966 Neil Armstrong deftly piloted the Gemini VIII within 0. the roll was accelerating.Sci-Fi Bad – Cedes Political We should build plausible and specific scenarios—that’s key to improve policymaking and avoid existential threats HUNTLEY et al 2010 (Wade L. The scenario process is formal and disciplined in its use of information and analysis. create new contexts for existing decisions. Scenarios are imaginative. the astronauts were in Armstrong was able to bring the wild oscillations under control thanks in part to preparation by a flight simulation training exercise that many pilots disliked. “Planning the unplannable: Scenarios on the future of space. This approach was reflected in Herman Kahn’s assertion of the need to ‘‘think the unthinkable’’ concerning the possibilities and implications of war in the atomic age. Scenarios thus help to develop the means to work towards preferred futures. They provide a means to stimulate new thinking. Analyzing scenarios reached greater methodological sophistication with the work of Pierre Wack. ‘‘thermonuclear war may seem unthinkable. Weingartner Consulting. But development. even if not necessarily likely. the process helps clarify that reality. and to develop various plans to cushion the blow that would (and did) result from formation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1960. Developing plausible scenarios helps us take the long view in a world of great uncertainty . scenarios are about learning. Miranda Weingartner. and mind-sets. At their core. scenarios are used to order our thoughts amid uncertainty. Joseph G. immoral. Armstrong and co-pilot David Scott were still in a celebratory mood. NASA did not plan the astronauts’ training based on the most likely scenarios.26 Fortunately. In requiring participants to challenge each others’ thoughts. Wack and his colleagues refined the application of scenario thinking to private enterprise. Bock. recognition of the counterintuitive notion that planning could be a necessary means of avoidance. With respect to their utility in guiding policy danger of impaired vision and loss of consciousness. they planned on the basis of plausible and important scenarios . intended to expand insight by identifying unexpected but important possible directions and outcomes. scenarios help us become more resilient to unexpected events. But when it began again. but it is not impossible’’. They are a useful tool for examining a number of different possible futures. when Scott noticed the Gemini beginning to roll.31 Scenario analysis came to be used in the political . challenge assumptions. This work helped Shell anticipate the consequences of the emergence of a cartel among oil exporting countries. but from their plausibility and the insights they generate . They can inspire new ideas and innovations by helping identify common goals and interests that transcend current political divides. internally consistent. insane. Tumbling now at one revolution per second.27 Scenarios are narratives of the future defined around a set of unpredictable drivers. The value of a set of scenarios accrues not from their accuracy or likelihood.28 Scenarios are stories about the way the world might turn out tomorrow. but they ought to be plausible. ‘‘In our times’’. They encourage participants to challenge conventional wisdom. arena when associates of Wack assisted stakeholders in South Africa in the peaceful transition from apartheid to democracy. Many doubted the country’s prospects; in 1987, the Guardian Weekly quoted Margaret Thatcher’s former spokesman Bernard Ingham as saying that anyone who believed the African National Congress (ANC) would one day rule South Africa was ‘‘living in cloud cuckoo land.’’32 But with operations in South Africa and an interest in preventing anarchy following the downfall of apartheid, Shell sent some of Wack’s prote´ge´s, including Adam Kahane, to convene meetings of top governmental, religious, civic and business leaders at a conference site there called Mont Fleur. From February 1990, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, to April 1994, when the first all-race elections were held, participants identified relatively certain and uncertain but plausible factors, and then formed into teams to research various alternative futures. In the midst of deep conflict and uncertainty, ‘‘Mont Fleur’’ brought people together from across ideological and political divides to think creatively about the future of their country. The collaboratively drafted scenarios were not a panacea, but did contribute to establishing a common vocabulary and enough mutual understanding for participants to find common ground on complex decisions. In particular, the consensus on the undesirability of three particular scenarios contributed to developing the perception of shared interests that was an important element in the success of the Scenario-building and analysis has become a distinct tool of US government policy making, and has been applied directly to future space security issues. For example, one major US Air Force scenario-based study evaluated 25 emerging technologies and 40 separate potential weapons systems through the lens of six ‘‘alternative futures’’ in an effort to guide future Air Force policy choices.34 This exercise (and others like it) exemplifies the potential for applying nonlinear future planning methodologies to large-scale public policy topics, including the future of space . The governmental transition.33 principal deficiency of such government-sponsored efforts is simply the narrowness of their focus e they are, by design, only concerned about a single government’s decision points and are shaped by the goals, dilemmas and uncertainties most relevant to that single party. Lacking is a parallel process to achieve the same kind of expansive thinking while also incorporating a full range of stakeholders. Such exercises can hardly be generated by governments. Sci-fi empirically can’t understand or affect policy Berger 1976 – award winning science fiction author (July, Albert I., “ The Triumph of Prophecy: Science Fiction and Nuclear Power in the Post-Hiroshima Period” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, JSTOR) naivete about politics and preoccupation with technological solutions was the obverse of the prevailing SF distaste for politics . Politics had always had a bad press in the science-fiction magazines, being portrayed as the captive of technologically, if not socially reactionary special interests. The appalling scientific ignorance and prejudice displayed by Congress after Hiroshima, and its general unwillingness to be educated, merely compounded the problem in the eyes of science-fiction writers and This readers. This distaste for politics was testified to not only by letters-to-the-editor in Astounding and the fan magazines but also by an article by W.B. de Graeff, "Congress is too Busy" (Sept 1946), detailing with a gleeful 1950 even an old stalwart like E.E. Smith could take up nearly a third of a novel-First Lensman (not serialized; Fantasy Press 1950)-with a detailed account of an election in which military heroes act both as police forces and as candidates arrayed against a corrupt political machine. The use of conspicuously armed poll watchers and what amounts to a military coup are justified by the criminal tactics of the opposition. Smith's villains are supposed to be the pawns of a sinister conspiracy of aliens, but their methods are described as normal American practice. contempt the most mundane and ridiculous chores of a member of Congress. By SF alone isn’t enough – new socio-literary techniques are needed for public engagement Miller and Bennett 2008 - Associate Director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Associate Director and CoPI of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, and Chair of the PhD Program in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology at Arizona State University. He is also a Senior Fellow in the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering from Cornell University AND PhD in biochemistry from Arizona State University in 2003 and today is an Assistant Research Professor in the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes and the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (October, Clark A. and Ira, “ Thinking longer term about technology: is there value in science fiction-inspired approaches to constructing futures? ” Science and Public Policy, 35(8), Ebsco) Even if science fiction offers an alternative approach to fostering thinking about longer-term developments in technology — one that focuses as much or more on the social dimensions of technological change than the technological — new kinds of socio-literary techniques would still be needed in order to exploit this approach in public engagement or technology assessment exercises. In the past two years, we have undertaken or participated in several exercises that have explored how aspects of science fiction might be used in interesting ways that we describe in brief here . We do not mean these to rise to the standard of proof of concept, by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, we offer them as illustrations of a couple of possible approaches we have taken, early on in our explorations of how we might use science fiction-inspired techniques to advance the objectives of societal reflection on technological futures. Predictions about the future of space must be rigorous and realistic—their science fiction stories don’t qualify HUNTLEY et al 2010 (Wade L. Huntley, US Naval Postgraduate School; Joseph G. Bock, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; Miranda Weingartner, Weingartner Consulting; “Planning the unplannable: Scenarios on the future of space,” Space Policy 26) Few space security analysts have focused on the possibilities for cooperation to function more organically as an element of the evolution of human space activities, rather than simply as a structure applied to that evolution. The more organic possibility reflects the potential over time for cooperative agreements and institutions to change state interests themselves. Processes facilitating such evolution include strategic interest convergence, information creation and sharing, ‘‘spillover’’ and ‘‘feedback’’ effects, issue scope expansion and integration, and the facilitation of transnational linkages. Interacting synergistically with the interests they are influencing, such cooperation evolves dynamically as well. As such cooperation deepens its roots among all parties, it can begin to endure self-sustainably.21 The potential for more organic principles and cooperative institutions to shape the nature of political relations themselves suggests a more expansive concept of the underlying nature of interstate relations e one that need not always resemble the realist image of a Hobbesian ‘‘war of all against all’’. Hedley Bull’s ‘‘anarchical society’’ and Daniel Deudney’s ‘‘negarchy,’’ for example, capture the past and present existence of international political orders that, despite the absence of hierarchical government, have functioned as qualitatively distinct governance systems.22 Application of concepts of qualitatively distinct political ordering principles to developing governance conditions of the future human presence in space is as yet largely unexplored.23 The fluidity of interests and capabilities with respect to space activities suggests a relatively large potential for organized cooperation to influence their evolution. Such cooperative principles and institutions would then become intrinsic to the dynamic political forces shaping the expanding human presence in space, growing and evolving with them, rather than acting as The rate and uncertainty of change in both the technological and political dimensions of expanding human space activities complicates this task. Herein lies the value of ‘‘realistic visions’’. Rigorous articulations of the interplay of the wide variety of constraints, tradeoffs, uncertainties, and values entailed in human expansion into space can facilitate evaluation of the applicability of alternative governance concepts to human space activities in the context of dynamic change. Among other things, such visions can explore how alternative exogenous static structures seeking to constrain those forces.24 futures in space are intimately linked to terrestrial conditions. As the human presence in space develops into an integral aspect of global life, it will increasingly reflect the prevailing conditions of global life. Anticipation of space weaponization premises continued earthly insecurity and conflict, while ambitions for growing commercial and exploratory development of space presume increasing international integration and collaboration. A future in which space becomes a domain of conflict and arms race competition may be irreconcilable with visions for increasing peaceful human presence embodied in today’s growing commercial and exploratory Choices among alternative futures for the human presence in space may depend upon choices among alternative futures for life on Earth as well. The following section reviews the potential activities. for scenariobuilding techniques to inform these choices by providing rigorous detailed visions of future worlds that account for a The resulting plausible, integrated visions can yield feasible policy-relevant insights that demonstrably enable current policy making to be more farsighted. Beyond the fruits of the exercises themselves, the wide range of current realities and span the spectra of the most important uncertainties. longer time-frames entailed in scenario building also facilitate dialogue among diverse parties divided on nearer-term questions. The collaboration enabled can inspire innovation and integrated analysis among diverse experts, leading to the development of a productive ‘‘epistemic community’’25 addressing the full scope of future human space activities. Vision development is only one aspect of long-term planning. Comprehensive knowledge generation and strategies for policy making are also required. But vision development is currently the least well advanced. All global policy debate, including US national security policy making, can benefit from having a fuller range of rigorous and credible assessments of long-term prospects from which to draw . Science fiction conflates fantasy with fact—this undermines civic engagement and scientific literacy Kluger 7/11/11 - senior writer for TIME (Jeffery, “ Scientific Illiteracy After the Shuttle: Are America's Smartest Days Behind Her?” http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2082213,00.html) the land of the free and home of the brave is in danger of becoming — not to put too fine a point on it — the land of the dunderhead , and my trip to Cape Canaveral, Fla., drove that point home. It's no secret that as a people, we're rapidly losing the basic fund of knowledge we need if we're going to function well in a complex world. Just last week, another dispiriting poll was released revealing how The problem is, little some of us know about our national history. Only 58% of Americans can say with certainty what happened on July 4, 1776 — a figure that falls to a jaw-dropping 31% in the under-30 cohort. Fully 25% of Americans who do know that we seceded from some country or another to become a nation don't know what that former parent country was. This follows on the heels of other polls showing similar numbers of folks believing that we fought the Russians in World War II and beat them with the help of our stalwart having a working knowledge of how the world operates is essential to understanding critical areas of national policy. Type the words "global warming" and "hoax" into Google and you get an appalling German allies. Being historically illiterate is bad. Being scientifically illiterate, however, is even worse — if only because 10.1 million hits. The polls are all over the map on this one, but they show that rising numbers of Americans think climate science is fraudulent or exaggerated — up to 41% in one survey. It's not merely opinion to say that those people are simply wrong. There may be raging debates among scientists about the precise severity, mechanisms and trajectory of global warming, but the basic science 18% of Americans who believe the sun revolves around Earth and the 28% who think the moon landings were faked. Google that last one and you're taken to sites that profess to be forums for political debate. Political debate? is established and accepted, whether you want to admit it or not. Then of course there are the About faking the moon landings? This isn't the Roman Senate, folks, it's fantasyland. What got me thinking about all this was a stop I Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex — a combination museum and theme park on the this season is called Sci-Fi Summer 2011 — and it delivers just what it promises. Adjacent to the rocket garden, with its full-size mock-ups of the U.S.'s most legendary boosters, is a massive maplike display comparing the sizes of the Saturn 1B, the Saturn 5, the Mercury Redstone, the space shuttle and the International Space Station to the Starship Enterprise. Which is fine, except that all the other spacecraft actually existed and the Enterprise, um, didn't. The spacesuits made after the launch at the Cape Canaveral grounds. The center's special feature worn by Neil Armstrong, Gordon Cooper and other astronauts are similarly commingled throughout the exhibit with uniforms worn by the Klingons and Romulons. There is also an entire pavilion set aside for a Star Trek display. O.K., it's cranky to begrudge people a Is there anyone alive who thinks that what Americans need right now are more ways to divert and amuse ourselves? Mix Cooper with the Klingons or the shuttle Enterprise with the Starship Enterprise long enough and the kids who consume all this stuff will no longer be able to tell them apart. Scientific literacy is part of good citizenship. And when it comes to space science, you don't need a lick of fiction to make it fun . An engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who works in the interplanetary program once explained why he loves his job by saying, " If you can't have a good time coming to work and building robots to send to Mars, give it up, man." The same used to be true of merely learning about such things. It must become true again if the U.S. is going to keep its edge . little fun and Star Trek is undeniably cool. But do we really not get enough fun and cool elsewhere? 09 June 2006. qualitative beliefs.html>. (Gibson’s famous quote is some semblance of: “The Future is here. <http://www. Reihan. One of the reasons why change will happen is that the sheer size of the assets at risk from climate change.General Futurism is unproductive Salam ’06(Salam. 2. All of this is a direct read of the world’s largest peer reviewed process of prediction. what we do now about carbon matters in a way that few moments have mattered.Futurism Bad . To wit: The Alamo. ANTICIPATION OR PROVOCATION. curves and timelines. We can look and feel despair. added to how much can be made from switching to new platforms and technologies. these are effectively predicting our future scientifically. It is important to know the difference between predictions grounded on data and articulated as probabilities. Steffen put up a fake-product picture of “panda jerky” (lab- . and created peer-reviewed work to predict our trajectory. and predictions that are simply personal opinion founded on a set of individual. data. we must start to lower our emissions on an individual and national level. Steffen maintains that. It positions where we’re going in the past." Slate. “Business as usual” will land us at 4. this way of approaching time suggests that we predict the future by looking at things that have already been built in the present. If we want to have a more reasonable task. One huge example: Climate Change. Building on William Gibson. character is destiny. So academics and media talk about is 4 degrees and 2 degrees. there is only one question: how long will politics allow this delay to continue? 1. it’s not evenly distributed. THE PAST. but Steffen believes that in fact there are many incentives aligning for the private sector to re-think its relationship to carbon. multi-cultural origins.) The problem is that we mean different things by “future. In fact. This relationship to time uses new products as provocation. Most predictions are glaringly wrong. columnist.”) We can look for things in our current environs that suggest where change will take place. Based on this scientific effort. and author. the globe is on a track toward 7 degrees warming. This is very real. PREDICTING THE PRESENT. There are very few predictions about what 7 degrees means because it represents such a profound change. It has been purposed and repurposed to be a lesson that substantiates Manifest Destiny.” The reality is that there are other ways of imagining our relationship to time.slate. fundamentally. Web. far outweigh the fossil fuel business. The latter is not always wrong. The Slate Group. SIMPLE PREDICTION. One side has assigned a set of probabilities. Steffen outlines six 1. Steffen suggests that it’s worth knowing that there is often a huge gap between what professional historians think/believe and how retellers of these stories reflect these stories.com/articles/technology/technology/2006/06/the_future_of_futuris m. American political commentator. We have a way of rewriting history to suggest what the future will be. Character is history. He is the executive editor of "National Review" "The Future of Futurism. 1. and even anti-tax rhetoric. there is no meaningful prediction. The climate models accepted by the scientific community give us budgets. author of Neuromancer. but the inquirer needs to be careful about them. Impacts will be with us for thousands of years. But business as usual is not a fair way of dealing with the future. . Green Mars. “Dune” is a detailed systems future using things that aren’t possible. It’s evident in role-playing games. but an excellent vision of a different reality. its construct is that it takes one unintended consequence of a new technology and “blows it out. The TV show “Black Mirror” is this sort of speculative science fiction. (The Red Mars. These works are often about “world building. Concept cars brought to the auto shows are an example of anticipation or provocation. 2. and not all of them are silly. Provocation can become the grounds for more detailed and thoughtful examination. but we are entertained. We can think of this as escapism being a future function of our society.” World building itself has become a popular cultural activity. Often these visionary futures are pure entertainment. made into jerky.g. Its premise: What if we tried settling Mars and the people who settled decided to rethink society?). and the way people look at programs like “Lost”. and packaged like any other FMCG). Blue Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is one such example. VISIONARY FUTURES. . Mad Max) are themselves provocations. Many other types of science fiction (e. We don’t necessarily believe in what this outlines.” trying to see how technology would change the future if its taken to an extreme conclusion.grown panda meat. we would bury the subject in the tomb that waits in the hollow of the signifier and pronounce at last the words we are condemned from the outset for having said anyway: that we are the advocates of abortion. that we do not intend a new politics. and queerest despite us. Jan. identityconfirming jouissance through which the social order congeals around the rituals of its own reproduction. by the side of those living and dying each day with the complications of AIDS. or the baths. as it were. 98 (Lee Edelman is a professor in the English Department at Tufts University. Disidentification. a brighter future. as image of the imaginary past or as identificatory link to the symbolic future. against the cult of the child and the political culture it supports. We can tell ourselves that with patience. if the jouissance. the excess enjoyment. “The Future is Kid Stuff: Queer Theory. date accessed 7/17/15. that the child as figure of futurity must die. the void. or generous doses of political savvy and electoral sophistication. that we have seen the future and it's every bit as lethal as the past. the future will hold a place for us-a place at the political table that won't have to come. TAM) Choosing to stand. with generous contributions to lobbying groups. and thus what is queerest about us. or generous participation in activist groups. in the form of the future by construing futurity itself as merely a form of reproduction. But there are no queers in that future as there can be no future for queers. queerest within us. that we are not. If the fate of the queer is to figure the fate that cuts the thread of futurity. or the bar. by which we are defined would destroy the other. as many of us do. since all of these fantasies reproduce the past. fetishistic. that gapes like a grave from within the lifeless mechanism of the signifier that animates the subject by spinning the gossamer web of the social reality within which that subject lives. reborn each day to postpone the encounter with the gap. outside the cycles of reproduction. through displacement. . 1998. Instead we choose not to choose the child. with work. and the Death Drive”. as we also do. we know the deception of the societal lie that endlessly looks toward a future whose promise is always a day away. " "the signifier of what might become a new form of 'social organization' (138).Futurism Bad – Edelman Embrace the death drive to allow a space for the queer Edelman. the emptiness. then the only oppositional status to which our queerness can properly lead us depends on our taking seriously the place of the death drive as which we figure and insisting. is our willingness to insist intransitively: to insist that the future stops here. to quote Guy Hocquenghem. choosing to stand. at the cost of our place in the bed. a better society. The future itself is kid stuff. How might one. mutually negating versions of postcolonial liberation: one looking toward a future of borderless global cultural liberation. spiritual awareness. contradictions and proclivities to intolerance. The utopian imagination is by its very nature free to elaborate radically different-from-the-present visions of a yet-to-be-realized society. of anticipating a global state of collective being that underestimates the propensity toward national or minority identities based on affirmation of the rights of peoples. This brings us to the most important question that follows from the recent resurgence of utopian visions: what is wrong with hope? Why should we deny dreamers the consolation of their fantasies? Is not the capacity to imagine a different and better world the most important component of our ability to change the world for the better? And does it POSTCOLONIALISM AND THE UTOPIAN IMAGINATION 727 Downloaded by [] at 07:10 18 July 2015 not follow that denying the possibility of imagining a radically different future might result in a crippling of the capacities to criticize present institutional injustices and dysfunctions and to create better institutions and forms of governance? There is a relatively simple answer to this: hope for the future goes astray whenever it is built upon a mistaken understanding of present conditions. intellectuallyinspired era of cultural affirmation and autonomy. to mask the unpleasant flavours of indigenophilism and small-scale identity politics with saccharine promises of unconditional liberation from the levelling powers of nationstates. can wreak havoc on recognized forms of critical etiquette. 07 (Ronald Niezen holds the Katharine A.. when tolerated as a form of intellectual discourse. complementary. and there is no definitive way to correct its errors. point conclusively to a misrepresentation of the . Recalling that postcolonialism also encourages nationalist essentialism. while leaving intact their most compelling promises of inclusion. at least in one sense. It is able to reconfigure particular cultural aspirations in a way that removes from view their tensions. another toward a more immediate. intimacy and affirmation. today often expressed in terms of cultural distinctiveness coupled with claims of political selfdetermination. 21 September 2007) Postcolonial futurism has no answer to the problems and paradoxes of cultural claims and collective strivings toward distinctiveness and selfdetermination other than to imagine a world in which they do not exist. a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Law.Utopianism = Passivism Post-colonial futurism and utopianism are non-falsifiable and make it impossible to create coalitions or enact political change – its built on a flawed foundation Niezen. Postcolonial futurism commits the fundamental error. The utopian imagination is able to make particular cultural allegiances seem more palatable for global consumption. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the faculties of Law and of Arts. this means that there are two antipathetic. as a critic. founded on misleading. irrational understandings of the present circumstances or propensities of human social life. “Postcolonialism and the Utopian Imagination”. and is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Anthropology. But the national and universalist versions of postcolonial liberation are. There is a sense in which utopianism. once widely attributed to Marxism. Ix. Although being largely premised on postmodernism’s rejection of ‘grand narratives’. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. and critic of academic culture. This prohibition. they were protesters and breakers of images. entailed no disrespect of God. One could “hear” the future. the classic work in this genre. Explicitly or implicitly they observed the biblical prohibition on graven images of the deity. Does this mean that there is no form of utopian imagination applicable to conditions of planetary integration. Whatever other qualities it might have. But perhaps it is yet possible to construct a vision of the future that acknowledges the untidiness and disarray of human identities. one that can offer realizable inspiration without engaging in obscurantism. I survey the roots and contours of such iconoclastic utopianism—iconoclastic inasmuch as it eschews blueprints and utopian inasmuch as it evokes a future “bliss of the fully contented. poetry. Print. Iconoclastic and Blueprint Utopianism Worthless. but not see it. Preface xv) I turn instead to the iconoclastic utopians. Certain dreams are inherently adverse to the stimulants of facts. From Thomas More to Edward Bellamy. In the same way that God could not be depicted for the Jews. Insofar as it does articulate a specific vision of future change. while maintaining a naı¨ve faith in the emergence. such futurism would begin with the following premise: we have more to learn from those who have struggled through conflict. practicalities and openness to revision. of course. In the original sense and for the original reasons. Preface. nor serve them” (Exodus : – ). of a free-flowing global cultural ecumene. Russell. New York: Columbia UP. Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age. 2005. Jacoby 5 (Jacoby. . and literature. . . the future could not be described for the iconoclastic utopians. their utopias took the form of stories in which travelers report of their adventures from . Ernst Bloch’s Spirit of Utopia. is a professor of history at the University of California Los Angeles an author. it indirectly possesses its own civilizing agenda to which all others are expected to conform. they were iconoclasts. The postcolonial utopian imagination is especially fraught with dilemmas and improbabilities. and although expressing its vision of the future as one of permissiveness and cultural freedom. out of conditions of revolutionary change and insecurity. They describe utopias in vivid colors.collective future? One of the appeals of utopianism is its immunity from falsification. On the contrary: it honored Him by refusing to circumscribe Him. cultural fundamentalism or civilizing agendas? My perspective suggests that postcolonial idealism makes it almost impossible to learn from the actual disorderly processes of negotiating and overcoming differences. it could only be approached through hints and parables.”11 The blueprint utopians have attracted the lion’s share of attention— both scholarly and popular. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. their proposals can be studied and embraced or rejected. those who dreamt of a superior society but who declined to give its precise measurements. it anticipates the dismantling of existing structures of nation-states and institutions of global governance. He invokes a utopian spirit purely by his reflections on music. compromise and reconciliation to achieve a condition of peace than from those who are content to imagine away the obstacles to an otherwise unachievable ideal. offers no concrete details about the future. 07 (Ronald Niezen holds the Katharine A. They offered characters.. practical approach to human perfectibility. In the most general terms possible. It describes a future world that has already gone through revolutionary transformation.” By contrast. In an image-obsessed society such as our own. a classic of blueprint utopianism.” writes the theologian Jacques Ellul in his defense of modern iconoclasm. Now we have to begin. The Humiliation of the Word. I suggest that the traditional blueprint utopianism may be exhausted and the iconoclastic utopianism indispensable. The utopian imagination . Pictures and graphics are not new. humanistic. A curtain of images surrounds us from morning till night and from childhood to old age. The word—both written and oral—seems to retreat in the wake of these images. usually accompanied by expectations of their actualization. If there is a common logic to the many different dreams of utopia. events. It also refers to more subtly rendered dreams of the future. projecting into the indeterminate future the amelioration of present deficiencies. without the nature of that revolution (particularly its traumas) being fully elaborated. and is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Anthropology. based on assumptions of human perfectibility. not a cold purity.” We are living in an “age of extreme visualization. “I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year . a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Law.an unknown future or land. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the faculties of Law and of Arts. but they were not ascetics. “Postcolonialism and the Utopian Imagination”. The term utopian imagination does not necessarily mean the disposition toward elaboration of fully formed visions of humanity’s future. commences with a straightforward Preface xv JACOBY FM 1/24/05 9:29 PM Page xv narrative. utopianism is a literary form that describes the essential features of an ideal future society. That is enough. They vanish into the margins of utopianism. This point must be underlined inasmuch as iconoclasm sometimes suggests a severe and puritanical temper. the iconoclastic utopians offer little concrete to grab onto. The modern utopian tradition therefore begins with the rise of lay literacy and the development (or rediscovery) of a secular. The iconoclastic utopians resist the modern seduction of images. If anything. 21 September 2007) Attempting to define the concept of utopia introduces the multi-dimensional inconvenience of a rich literature in which there are paradigmatic historical transformations leading up to a confusion of meanings in the present. and particulars. a kind of wish fulfilment for humanity. “is subordinated to visualization. it is a longing for luxe and sensuousness that defines the iconoclastic utopian. of course. “I am. and nothing has meaning outside it. Bloch’s Spirit of Utopia opens mysteriously.”12 Utopianism papers over the most crucial aspects of creating a new future – fully rendered political utopias are not useful roadmaps to change Niezen. it can be found simply in the expectation of better things tomorrow. We are. Bellamy’s Looking Backward. they provide neither tales nor pictures of the morrow.” In regard to the future the iconoclasts were ascetic. Next to the blueprinters they appear almost as ineffable as they actually are. “Everything. but their ubiquity is. Today.5 Only two decades ago Habermas argued that the West’s successful projects of social democracy and the welfare state had taken much of the allure out of utopian projects. notably fascism and Soviet communism. placing limits on dissent and particularly on radical designs for a better future. but more often creative varieties of ambitious optimism. concludes with the observation that. comparatively formless visions of the future. . private property. particularly in times of accelerated global change. We must be alert to the possibility that it has simply taken new forms. sexual mores. not just those familiar ideas that reject the dystopias of uncontrolled science and global tyranny. What are the particular forms of utopian imagination that might find root in the current intellectual terrain? This question is complicated by the fact that until fairly recently there was a general consensus among social theorists that utopian thinking had dramatically declined. there was in the late twentieth century a ‘discrepancy between the piling up of technological and scientific instrumentalities for making all things possible. and the pitiable poverty of goals’. unlike previous ages in which there was a rich imaginary of ingenious and often bizarre alternatives to the state. universal ideals of liberation seem to be keeping pace with new perspectives on globalization. and so on. Manuel and Manuel’s epic survey of Western utopian thought.6 Views may have differed on the causes of the steep decline in utopianism in late modernity— the dampening effect of the spectacular failure of several major forms of political imperialism driven by ideological futurism. has been the most common and straightforward explanation—and they may have differed on the significance that should be attached to the decline. and we should expect that out of the promise and insecurities of a rapidly integrating world there would again emerge hopeful visions of the human future. but until very recently there was broad consensus surrounding the view that utopian projects came quietly to an end some time during the post-World War II period of the twentieth century. ranging from 716 ISRAEL AFFAIRS Downloaded by [] at 07:10 18 July 2015 nostalgic regret to celebration of an end to a politically dangerous form of irrationalism. for example. having been suppressed in one way or another by conditions of late modernity. mainly by creating a politico-economic order that forbade any radically different alternative. has diminished. but worlds that somehow transcend the conflicts and dysfunctions of lived reality. family.does not just depict alternative worlds. Part of the reason for this perception of decline has been an undue emphasis on fully rendered political utopias with less consideration given to alternative. But just because the modernist visions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are now largely discredited does not mean that the propensity to envision an ideal future. Lawyer. New York: Columbia UP. Levin ’12 (Levin. He believed the Nazi practices occasioned a new word. 2005. New York: Threshold Editions. they seem to address kindred experiences. Russell. workable. coined “genocide” in “to denote an old practice in its modern development”—the annihilation of a national or ethnic group. is the use of power to dehumanize the individual and delegitimize his nature. “Whoever sets out to implement Utopian plans will in the first instance have to wipe clean the canvas.43 While Lemkin worked tirelessly to spread the news about genocide—with few rewards44—he did not associate it with either utopia or dystopia.” the term “genocide” belongs to the twentieth century. fraternity.” it leads to hell on earth. Like “dystopia. Hitler. What An Anarchic Breeze JACOBY CH 01 1/24/05 9:23 PM Page 13 connects Thomas More’s Utopia and Hitler’s Mein Kampf? Virtually nothing. Page 12-13) The common wisdom that utopias inexorably lead to dystopias not only derives from texts. Political utopianism is tyranny disguised as a desirable . professor of history at the University of California Los Angeles an author. There are. New words help make the argument. Nazism should not be deemed a utopian enterprise. This is a brutal process of destruction. lead to the individuals subjugation. broadly define.) Tyranny.Utopianism = Violence Utopianism paves the way to totalitarianism and endless Jacoby 2005 (Jacoby. “We must beware of Utopia.45 Yet scholarly and conventional opinion today consistently links genocide and utopia and bills the blood bath of the twentieth century to “utopians” such as Stalin. on which the real world is painted. Print. unlimited utopian constructs. in small ways and large. Even the vaguest description of utopia as a society inspired by notions of happiness. for the mind is capable of infinite fantasies. a Polish-Jewish refugee.” wrote Ralf Dahrendorf.46 To question this approach requires asking what utopias are actually about—and why. 2012. Mark R. and plenty would apparently exclude Nazism with its notion of Ayrans dominating inferiors in a Thousand Year Reich. From Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism to Martin Malia’s Soviet Tragedy —its last chapter is titled “The Perverse Logic of Utopia”—scholars have thrown communism.47 Utopianism is Tyranny disguised as ideology. and critic of academic culture Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age. Raphael Lemkin. the impracticability and impossibility of which. Karl Popper. of course. and Mao. a philosopher . Bu t there are common themes. worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. The fantasies take the form of grand social plans or experiments . Print. Prestigious savants like Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper have persuasively argued that utopia leads to totalitarianism and mass murder. Inevitably these new terms seem related. Nazism. for instance. it appeals to history to make its case. and even paradisiacal governing ideology. Page 5. and utopia into one tub. Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America. ) Utopianism is pseudo-science and reasoning. worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. while laying claim to them all . or at least a leap of faith. Mark R. he will be tormented and ultimately coerced into compliance. Social sciences seeking to provide a background for social engineering cannot. and coercion. for conformity is essential. Mark R. stripping individuals of their personal Identity and making them a subject of whomever is in charge. age." but it simultaneously assigns him a group identity based on race . to suggest that one unleashed.not family. 2012. His first duty must be to the state .deconstructed the false assumption and scientific utopianism. Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America. If he refuses. who eloquently (Although Popper differentiated between "piecemeal social engineering" and "utopian social engineering. Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America. and must overlook the only social laws of real validity and of real importance. the individual can be molded by the state with endless social experiments and lifestyles calibrations. etc. Print. thereby stampeding them . be true descriptions of social facts. science. They are impossible in themselves. worked in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese. 2012. income. Yet there is nothing new in deception disguised as hope and nothing original in abstraction framed as progress. Indeed. and Popper never could enunciate a practical solution." it is an ahistorical. Through persuasion. Page 7.) Utopianism also attempts to shape and dominate the individual by doing two things at once: it strips the individual of his uniqueness . Utopianism is a way to try to shape individuals and divide them creating more violence and recreating the same oppressive society Levin ’12 (Levin. observed that "[a]ny social science which does not teach the impossibility of rational social construction is entirely blind to the most important facts of social life. Once dispirited.) Utopianism substitute’s glorious predictions and unachievable promises for knowledge. Print. ethnicity. New York: Threshold Editions. It then exacerbates old rivalries and disputes or it incites new ones. Levin 12 (Levin. which is condemned as morally indefensible and empty. the individual must be stripped of his identity and subordinated to the state. community. Page 5. the social engineers will not become addicted to their power. New York: Threshold Editions. A heavenly society is said to be within reach if only the individual surrenders more of his liberty and being for the general good . meaning the good as prescribed by the state. Lawyer. He must abandon his own ambitions of the state. all of which challenge the authority of the state . Lawyer. This way it can speak to the well-being of "the people" as a whole while dividing them against themselves. nothing good can come of self-interest. making him indistinguishable from the multitudes that form what is commonly referred to as "the masse s. gender. deceit. therefore. and faith. to highlight differences within the masses . long-term forecasts it considers worth pursuing.. arguing it is totalitarian in form and substance . and reason. Popper argued that unable to make detailed or precise sociological predictions. in once direction or another as necessary to collapse the existing society or rule over the new one. . thisisafrica. leeching off manifestos: Afro-Surrealism. but only the modification of the creativity of others. it would still be what it is without black people in it. He writes. and acknowledge the possibility of magic. like Kara Walker. Would that same music if it was produced by a person of a different . why not call it something entirely new? Miller considers The Neptunes early music Afro-futurist. The prefix ‘Afro-’ as used in art criticism modifies existing manifestos. and it is our job to uncover it. It can go to the point where Afro-futurism can only be about a person of colour in a future space.me/visualarts/detail/19943/art-criticism-is-the-prefix-afro-as-in-afro-futurism-arresting-ourimagination-and-manifesto-salesmanship. I wouldn’t have a problem with it because creativity is about modifying elements that are already there to create something new. http://www. black philosopher and filmmaker.” “…Leopold Senghor. I think it has the capacity to arrest African imagination. it does not promote the generation of wholly new ideas and manifestos. there is an invisible world striving to manifest. 13 – Phetogo. “Afro-Surrealism is not surrealism. poet. first president of Senegal. clearing the murk of the collective unconsciousness as it manifests in these dreams called culture” Miller claims that Afro-Surrealism is NOT Surrealism. Miller outlines what isn’t Afro-Surrealism. since it is so different from surrealism. Scot Miller and it had me asking a few questions. Afro-Punk. We take up the obsessions of the ancients and kindle the dis-ease. I read an Afro-Surrealist manifesto written by D.‘Afro’ K Their use of the pre-fix ‘afro’ to avoid a wider discussion of futurism begs the question of why they called their args futurist in the first instance – it only creates racial dissonance that causes their argument to become incoherent Tshepo Mahasha. Just a quick internet search reveals that the movie The Matrix is listed as Afro-futurism on some websites. In my opinion. “Afro-Surrealists restore the cult of the past. We appropriate 19th century slavery symbols. but given what’s out there at this point I have an objection. and 18th century colonial ones. We revisit old ways with new eyes.” And he goes on to say. so that the African imagination only follows other manifestos. made this distinction: ‘European Surrealism is empirical. “[it] presupposes that beyond this visible world.’” And then he says of Afro-Surrealism. when in fact for a project like ‘The Matrix’. In this manifesto. And then he goes on to define something that’s different from ‘Surrealism’ and calls it ‘Afro-Surreal’. The prefix ‘afro-’ has acquired a parasitic character. the faces and races are interchangeable. and African Surrealist. like Yinka Shonibare. Afro-Futurism and Afro-etc. A prefix modifies a word/statement. We re-introduce ‘madness’ as visitations from the gods. African Surrealism is mystical and metaphorical. My question when I read Miller’s Manifesto was why call it Afro-Surrealism if it is not Surrealism? Why prefix the word Surrealism with ‘Afro-’? Most importantly. “Art Criticism: is the prefix ‘Afro-’ (as in "Afro-futurism") arresting our imagination and manifesto salesmanship?” July 14. only to attach itself to them and never coming up with an original of its own. Minimizing the ‘afro’ prefix would promote fresh thinking . would it require another prefix to be Japanese-Afro-Punk? I have difficulty answering these questions.race still be considered Afro-futurist? What made it fundamentally Afro-futurist except for race? Their use of ‘afro’ as a signifier to modify and distinguish their argument from other forms of criticism must be rejected – it limits imaginative possibilities and homogenizes experience Tshepo Mahasha. . and not be restricted to – or attached to . c) The African Renaissance is about creating a floor in a much larger context. I don’t think I’m way off in imagining the South American manifesto of ‘Magic Realism’ would be called ‘Afro-something’ if it was being done by people of African descent.thisisafrica. I don’t. It took a long time to finish this essay and to publish it. It’s about freeing the African from the “struggle for reason” by collecting and restoring artefacts. I’d like to believe that there must be others who feel the same as I do. when looked at with the “Futurism” manifesto. can the same be easily said for any of the ‘Afro-’ prefixed semi-manifestos? Or does it pivot on race? Can a Japanese person do ‘Afro-punk’ and if so. As I have explored my views. It must be recognized that ‘some’ current African Art cannot be contextualized without mention of the Renaissance and its excavations. Surrealism (Afro-Surrealism) etc. I see it as a necessity for the sake of encouraging imagination to grow. The implication being that any person of any descent can do Highlife music. and projecting these into the future so that this base will always be available to future generations. I am referring to the points that I’ve covered in this essay in relation to art-criticism. We need to encourage new names and manifestos. I haven’t even taken into account that Afro-futurism may be a misnomer. http://www. new Manifestos) and/or the offsetting of “the struggle for reason” that cultural production takes place and should be evaluated in.me/visualarts/detail/19943/art-criticism-is-the-prefix-afro-as-in-afro-futurism-arresting-ourimagination-and-manifesto-salesmanship. “Art Criticism: is the prefix ‘Afro-’ (as in "Afro-futurism") arresting our imagination and manifesto salesmanship?” July 14. for a second.other pre-existing manifestos and make it harder for ourselves to come up with something unique. Even as I write this I have doubts that of course I may be biased. one that aims for African people to be free amongst other free people.Black people reacting to other manifestos: Punk (Afro-Punk). I wouldn’t like to speak only for myself. It is either within the context of ultimate freedom (Free to explore and create new black African identities. They are forms of reacting to things instead of all out attempt at ‘originality’ . My mind may change in time about the contents of this essay but at this point I am convinced. black philosopher and filmmaker. I concluded: a) The use of the prefix ‘afro-’ needs to be minimized for the sake of freeing African imagination. 13 – Phetogo. doubt the force of my imagination. ‘High-life’ music is highlife. Since I can’t foresee and cover the entire use of the prefix. b) Art critics need to be bold enough to give things stand-alone names. Everything is about encouraging invention. Afromanifestos have a “leeching” tinge to them. Thompson observed. difference there could ultimately be between being a historian and being a Marxist.house.ism" that grew out of the Second International and later turned into a caricature of itself in the form of Stalinism." "positivisms. Indeed. as the philoso. and revolutionary. Czar of Russia.ter. and Raymond Williams.P."9 Historical materialism at its best provides a way out of this dilemma. Foster ’97 (John Bellamy. but rather of "the reasons of power and the reasons of money . But this does not mean. Historical disengagement abdicates power and guarantees the continuation of a white capital regime. like that of postmodernism generally." and "structuralisms" that have intruded on the philosophy of praxis itself-a self-critique that has produced the insights of theorists like Gramsci. and history itself are only effec. precisely in order to expel the kinds of "essentialisms. Yet they held firm to the critique of capitalism and their commitment to the these particular examples tell us that if what has sometimes been called "the postmodern agenda"-consisting of issues like identity. In Defense of History.pher Michael Oakeshott contended with respect to political activity in the 1950s. Department of Sociology at Oregon. Moreover. It is said that Nicholas I.gles.thus far overshadow its strengths. And here one might openly wonder with Foucault "what struggles of the oppressed. As David McNally says. issued an order banning the word "progress. Marxism has sometimes relied on " `essentialist' tricks of mind. revolution. as distinct from Foucault.dationalism" is a bit like throwing out the baby in order to keep the bathwater clean ." In his Theses on Feuerbach.tique covers up what is really at issue: the denial of the historical critique of capitalism.tively analyzed within a context that is simultaneously historical in charac. nationality. Thompson. Missing from Foucault's analysis.going critique of what he called the "essentialist" conception of human beings and nature. Sartre. In the more extreme case of "textual postmodernists"-those postmodernist thinkers like Derrida. ed. and language-is to be addressed at all. By undermining the very concept of history-in any meaningful sense beyond mere story-telling-such theorists have robbed critical analysis of what has always been its most indispensable tool. in a nineteenth century sense. leading to a convergence between left thought infected by Nietzsche and the dominant liberal "end of history" conception.'8 The denial within postmodernist theory of the validity of historical cri." the "tendency to intellectualize the social process"-"the rapid delineation of the deep proc." What the contributions in this volume have in common is the insistence that issues like language. Marx himself provided scientists in general) should guard against. is that one loses sight not of "reason in history" in some abstract sense. this can only be accomplished within a historical context.Cap Links Afro-futurism is a form of anti-historicism which abandons materialism in favor of textual and rhetorical determinations of reality. in automatic human progress. culture." These are things that the historian (and social to abandon theory and historical explanation entirely in order to avoid "essentialism" and "foun." When placed within a more holistic historical materialist context-ani. As Thompson pointed out in a 1977 essay on Christopher Caudwell. The danger of such ahistorical or anti-historical views.20 These thinkers distanced themselves from the positivistic "official Marx. race. as in the case of Stalinism-has frequently been identified with the kind of "totalizations" and "essentialisms" that postmodernist theorists have singled out. is any conception of a counter-order to the disciplinary orders described. nor of the notion of human progress as a possible outcome of historical strug. culture. Such analyses do not abandon the hope of transcending capitalism. Foster & Wood) The weaknesses of postmodernism-from an emancipatory perspective .mated by the concept of praxis-the problems raised by postmodernism look entirely different. This is not to ignore the fact that Marxismwhich has sometimes given rise to its own crude interpretations and historical travesties. embodying some definite content-the idea that the Czar found so threatening. actively opposing theory (even "Marxist" theory) that purported to be "suprahistorical. who deny any reality outside the text-the political and historical weaknesses from a left perspective are even more glaring. "Language is not a prison. gender. as E." Today we no longer believe. “In Defense of History. But another model. that we "sail a .ess of a whole epoch. historical materialism has long engaged in its own self-critique. materialist (in the sense of focusing on concrete practices). he presented what still ranks as the most thorough. but a site of struggle. the environment. am and his celebrity participants hold a rarified position.sive human emancipation. ” For Žižek.i. responding: I can detect the possibility of a naïve assumption that the redistribution of commodities is somehow congruent with the redistribution of wealth—which it is not. but it is created and disseminated within a system in which will.” to use Delany’s words. Perhaps this will be the final destiny of postmodernist theory-its absorption by the vast marketing apparatus of the capitalist economy. it abandons from the start all hope of transcending capitalism itself and entering a post-capitalist era.gress suggest-is more To abandon altogether the concept of progress. political decisions. Greer. author and contributor to HuffPo. “cyberspace capitalism” obfuscates a crucial reality that the market — and.boundless and bottomless sea" that has "neither starting-point nor appointed direction" and that our only task is "to keep afloat on an even keel. but do so by perpetuating a fantasy of “equitable input. I can detect an assumption that the distribution of commodities is at one with access to the formation of those commodities and the commodity system… When one talks about “black youth culture as a technological culture.20 (emphasis in original) Delany’s critique of consumerism disguised as participation and power is at the root of Žižek’s assertion in 1997 that the “ideology of cyberspace capitalism” obliterates individuality and the “particularity of social position." History-as centuries of struggle and indeed pro. which attempts to utilize the insights of thinkers like Foucault.edu/pubs/anamesa/archive/fall_2009_intersections/yes_we_can_president_barack_obam a_and_afrofuturism. not to revel in the "carnival" of capitalist productive and market relations.21 The irony of post-modernism is that while purporting to have transcended modernity. Afrofuturism operates within the assumptions of capitalism. he suggested to author Samuel Delany that “the young urban blacks responsible for vital art forms such as hip-hop live in what might be called ‘beeper culture. “Yes We Can: (President) Barack Obama and Afrofuturism. They are privileged because they have access to Delany’s “equitable input. Alternet. but to transcend them . It perpetuates a vision of solidarity and togetherness. Lyotard.pdf) Dery coined the term Afrofuturism. Just as seriously.” published in Anamesa http://www.” they are participants Multiculturalism: Yes You Can In the 1993 article in which . Postmodernist theory is therefore easily absorbed within the dominant cultural frame and has even given rise meaningful than that. adding irony and color to a commercial order that must constantly find new ways to insinuate itself into the every. in the more general sense of the possibility of progres.”19 Dery posits that technology had become omnipresent —in the United States at least—and was available now even to those members of the populace to whom access to societal advances had generally been denied .day lives of the population. as he notes. the World Wide Web —relies on power relations.” one has to specify that it’s a technological culture that’s almost entirely on the receiving end of a river of “stuff.22 Derrida. Such political disengagement by intellectuals on the left in the present epoch could only mean one thing: the total obeisance to capital. and institutional conditions that necessarily remove ordinary people from proximity to power . making liberation impossible. MA in Performance Studies from NYU. historical materialism will remain the necessary intellectual ground for all those who seek. Meanwhile.” in which the young consumers have nowhere near what we might call equitable input. and Baudillard to market goods within a capitalist economy. Delany took issue with Dery’s assessment. recently to texts such as Postmodern Marketing.nyu. Greer 09 (Olivia J. 21 “Yes We Can” operates within the fantasy of equitable input.’ where miniatured digital technology is everywhere at hand. would only be to submit to the wishes of the powers that be. Obama spoke to the challenges of the present. or by Obama science fiction’s “color-blind future is multiculturalist in this way. But hope for what: the present. of gays and lesbians. one is even tempted to claim that today.am probably does not imagine “Yes We Can” adhering to Žižek’s model of multicultural when the word “hope” turns to “vote” what is left is a sense of what DeClue calls This censorship.”22 However. everybody silently accepts that capitalism is here to stay—critical energy has found a substitute outlet in fighting for cultural differences which leave the basic homogeneity of the capitalist world-system intact.” However. Conclusion the idea of liberation may very well be a trap. Its beautiful representatives of diversity mask the capitalist ideology behind it.i. and John F. with traces of Martin Luther King. In other words. Žižek might argue.am’s “Yes We Can”—with its development out of the most commercial arms of the entertainment industry.” is doing the ultimate service to the unrestrained development of capitalism by actively participating in the ideological effort to render its massive presence invisible. Jenkins notes—recalling Žižek —“it is wrong to assume that we are somehow being liberated through improved media technologies. “Yes We Can” is part of what Henry Jenkins describes as “new participatory culture. As Ricardo Dominguez writes in Electronic Disturbance. The video’s vision of multicultural unity. what Néstor García Canclini calls the “illusion of participation. Žižek.24 will. Since. It is for this very Bould cautions against viewing Afrofuturism as a pure mode of resistance.i. 23 For Žižek. the mechanism of censorship (which upholds existing power structures) is multiculturalism. and so on. even if a certain disrupted contemporary appearance of racism also characterizes will. Kennedy— images of liberation not achieved. of different lifestyles. despite best intentions. “the many” can never verify the truth of the celebrity’s manifestation. tolerate some relatively minor (although not unimportant) reforms. annotate.27 The words are moving. “A king who took us to the mountaintop” directly conjures up images of the civil rights movement.”28 begs the question of whether mere survival is—or should be—the end goal. but these sections are not part of the video.am’s video. Against the image.” which is forming at the intersections of new tools and technologies that “enable consumers to archive. allpresent in cultural criticism. Cultural production operates increasingly within a capitalist frame that. “Afrofuturism tends towards the typical cyberpunk acceptance of capitalism as an unquestionable universe and working for the assimilation of certain currently marginalized peoples into a global system that might.29 Jenkins writes that these trends seem to encourage active modes of spectatorship. but also harkens back to the Bible. the future. of a radical subversive discourse or practice “censored” by the Power.”26 The lack of himself.”30 We are more often being given the idea that we are being liberated.”31 As Žižek and Bould remind us. argues against the idea that subversion could exist within the structures of the market. without proximity. in which audiences gain power and autonomy in a “new knowledge culture.” and the interaction of multiple forms of media.” the promotion of “do-it-yourself (DIY) media production. especially when redeployed over a soundtrack of many voices. and its strained reach toward multiraciality—raises important questions about the silent acceptance of systems of oppression. while capitalism pursues its triumphant march reason that —and today’s cultural theory. “the celebrity acts as empirical proof positive that electronic appearance is but a record of the natural world. like Delany and Bould. as we might put it. or even the past? The sections of Obama’s speech that will. in the guise of “cultural studies. but within which the many will still have to poach. So we are fighting our pc battles for the rights of ethnic minorities. operates entirely within the capitalist homogeneity Žižek outlines. The multiculturalist “respects” (in Žižek’s own scare quotes) the identity of the Other. will.”25 For Bould. Yet. Survival.i. of the market.” and thus asserting his own superiority. but deferred —to push for a nostalgic hope. while maintaining the distance of a “privileged universal position . In other parts of his full speech. the mechanism of censorship intervenes predominantly to enhance the efficiency of the power discourse itself…The gesture of self-censorship is co-substantial with the exercise of power.am chooses to highlight are those that harken back to another time.i. is multiculturalism. at best.am’s “Yes We Can” video and Obama’s . and hide to survive .in the production of technology. can be precipitous to navigate . Jr. “Yes We Can” uses the ghosting of the past. Bould cites Žižek’s critique. multiculturalism is an invention of capitalism that encourages the separation of cultural differences as a means to uphold the homogeneity of capitalist systems. which he conceives as a destructive force born out of capitalism. appropriate and recirculate media content. or whether a more radical break for future freedom is needed . more than ever. its dependence on celebrity. pilfer. which goes unquestioned by anyone in the video.i. but by the end “survival by futurity. stating that attention to “the many” who will continue to suffer under capitalism. The purpose of this study has not been to dislocate will. while not presenting a clear power source. operating from figures of capital (“the multiculturalist”) outwards. the very fact that a situation is perceived by the majority of the population as a ‘new beginning’ opens up the space for important ideological and political rearticulations.” as Octavia Butler would have us do. technological advance. a symbolic system rife with shared rhetoric. as Bould does from against the dangerous assumption that Afrofuturism —or any artistic movement. Particularly in electoral politics. and Artistic production. But if that space is filled with a status quo that is called a new beginning. Under such circumstances. DeClue’s conceptualization of presidential campaign and victory from the field of Afrofuturism.”32 While hypothetically this transmission might move a society forward progressively. Even since the election of Barack Obama. Certainly these signs can be found readily. familiar gestures. poll numbers. even as it collapses before our eyes. and inscribed public spaces (both offline and online) allow for the equal possibility of either reenacting our political reality and stabilizing the status quo. and future visioning will not take us the whole way to political transformation. It within the field. but more in terms of what they open up . we may find ourselves in a multicultural morass of pretty pictures that ask only for complacency.is rather to caution. for that matter—is synonymous with cultural or political resistance . Obama as Afrofuturist has a relationship with Victor Turner’s concept of an intercultural transmission of experience that consists of a “living through. or of finding ways to resist. Obama—and the cultural production that has developed with him—has certainly opened up an enormous space for possibility. resistance is problematic. the United States (and arguably the rest of the world) faces a discouraging political climate in which capitalism is an unchallenged omnipresence. This is a position that Žižek be wary of simple answers. it is tempting to find signs of resistance and change in our cultural and political production. . 33 complicates: “Even when the change is not substantial but a mere semblance of a new beginning. that it will do so is not a forgone conclusion. It is important though that we “stay awake.” and a “willing or wishing forward.”34 “Yes We Can” shows that the navigation between status quo and outcomes can be characterized not as good or bad. and are heartening and galvanizing.” a “thinking back. positive or negative. This naïve simulation allows whiteness to predetermine and maintain predictable market futures. they are amazed by the impact this realization had on these forgotten beings. it aims to extend that tradition by reorienting the intercultural vectors of Black Atlantic temporality towards power now operates predictively as much as retrospectively. ceased to participate in the process of building futures. Today. It is clear that . Writer/Filmaker. the situation is reversed. it is a commonplace that the future is a chronopolitical terrain. African intellectuals adopted variations of the position that Homi Bhabha (1992) [End Page 288] termed This fatigue with futurity carried through to Black Atlantic cultural activists. rather than trivial.edu. If Cap: The future is pre-determined by Capitalism’s drive to create predictable markets. The field of Afrofuturism does not seek to deny the tradition of countermemory . The present moment is stretching. In this context. slipping for some into yesterday. by the responsibility they showed towards the not-yet. Imagine the archaeologists as they use their emulators to scroll through the fragile files. In the colonial era of the early to middle twentieth century. towards becoming. For the rest of the century. as it has done throughout the last century. Eshun 2003 (Kodwo Eshun.wakehealth. The powerful employ futurists and draw power from the futures they endorse. When Nkrumah was deposed in Ghana in 1966. inquiry into production of futures becomes fundamental." their time.edu/journals/new_centennial_review/v003/3. through Prediction Fast forward to Rather.jhu.libproxy. power also functions through the envisioning. As the archaeologists patiently sift the twenty-first-century archives. In "melancholia in revolt. Today. MA in English. Control the early twenty-first century. there were good reasons for disenchantment with futurism. little by little. avant-gardists from Walter Benjamin to Frantz Fanon revolted in the name of the future against a power structure that relied on control and representation of the historical archive.2esh un. “Further Considerations on Afrofuturism” pubished in The New Centennial Review http://muse. A cultural moment when digitopian futures are routinely invoked to hide the present in all its unhappiness. They are touched by the seriousness of those founding mothers and fathers of Afrofuturism. Afrofuturism engages in product placement through a non-neutral science fiction which creates self-fulfilling demand for new technologies. The combination of colonial revenge and popular discontent created sustained hostility towards the planned utopias of African socialism.Cap or Wilderson Link If Wilderson: Afrofuturism relies on a grammar of futurity which assumes a chronopolitical landscape in which blackness has agency. however.html) For African artists. thereby condemning the disempowered to live in the past. it signalled the collapse of the first attempt to build the USAF. who. and delivery of reliable futures. Capital continues to function through the dissimulation of the imperial archive.go. reaching for others into tomorrow. a terrain as hostile and as treacherous as the past. [End Page 289] SF Capital Power now deploys a mode the critic Mark Fisher (2000) calls SF (science fiction) the proleptic as much as the retrospective. management. think-tank reports. it would be naïve to understand science fiction. The alliance between cybernetic futurism and "New Economy" theories argues that information is a direct generator of economic value. science-fiction novels. medical reports on AIDS. as offering "a significant distortion of the present" (Last Angel of History 1995). It exists in mathematical formalizations such as computer simulations. Looking back at the genre. in Samuel R. To be more precise. These powerful descriptions of the future demoralize us. or as a utopian project for imagining alternative social realities. Both the science-fiction movie and the scenario are examples of apparent that cybernetic futurism that talks of things that haven't happened yet in the past tense. the positive feedback between future-oriented media and capital. Market Dystopia If global scenarios are descriptions that are primarily concerned with making futures safe for the market. rather. and life-expectancy forecasts. would have rendered the archaeologists' own existence impossible. Given this context. located within the expanded field of the futures industry. doomsday economic projections. consultancy papers—and through informal descriptions such as science-fiction cinema. weather predictions. virtual futures generate capital. technological projection. these approaches seek to model variation over time by oscillating between anticipation and determinism. The AAAP knows better: such statistical delirium reveals the fervid wish dreams of the host market. Delany's statement. science fiction is a means through which to preprogram the present (cited in Eshun 1998). Science fiction operates through the power of falsification. can therefore be seen as product-placed visions of the reality-producing power of computer networks. to groan with sadness. sonic fictions. religious prophecy. Corporate business seeks to manage the unknown through decisions based on scenarios. SF capital is the synergy. Science fiction might better be understood. they sift the ashes. to command us to make them flesh. such as the global scenarios of the professional market futurist. In this case. fictional media. and market prediction—has been to fuel the desire for a technology boom. it is clear that the effect of the futures industry— defined here as the intersecting industries of technoscience. Hollywood's 1990s love for sci-tech fictions. all of which predict decades of immiserization. if accurate. levels that.capital. from Men in Black to Minority Report. from The Truman Show to The Matrix. it becomes science fiction was never concerned with the future. As New Economy ideas take hold. Bridging the two are formal-informal hybrids. but rather with engineering feedback between its preferred future and its becoming present. This area shows extreme density of dystopic forecasting. African social reality is overdetermined by intimidating global scenarios. futures trading. science fiction is neither forward-looking nor utopian. Imagine the All-African Archaeological Program sweeping the site with their chronometers. while the scenario operates through the control and prediction of plausible alternative tomorrows. as merely prediction into the far future. A subtle oscillation between prediction and control is being engineered in [End Page 290] which successful or powerful descriptions of the future have an increasing ability to draw us towards them. in William Gibson's phrase. indicators pointing to the dangerously high levels of hostile projections. Commissioned by multinationals and nongovernmental organizations . futurism has little to do with the Italian and Russian avant-gardes. then Afrofuturism's first priority is to recognize that Africa increasingly exists as the object of futurist projection. Imagine the readouts on their portables. and the will to deny plausibility. Rather. and venture capital. economic projections. the drive to rewrite reality. which in turn contribute to an explosion in the technologies they hymn. while civil society responds to future shock through habits formatted by science fiction. they command us to bury our heads in our hands. Again and again. Looking back at the media generated by the computer boom of the 1990s. Information about the future therefore circulates as an increasingly important commodity. The Futures Industry Science fiction is now a research and development department within a futures industry that dreams of the prediction and control of tomorrow. weather reports. these developmental futurisms function as the other side of the corporate utopias that make the future safe for industry. . There is always a reliable trade in market projections for Africa's socioeconomic crises. Africa is always the zone of the absolute dystopia. we are menaced by predatory futures that insist the next 50 years will be hostile. Market dystopias aim to warn against predatory futures. rather. we are seduced not by (NGOs). but always do so in a discourse that aspires to unchallengeable certainty. Within an economy that runs on SF capital and market futurism. smiling faces staring brightly into a screen. Here.