New Directions in Black Science Fiction

Catalog description

The last two decades have seen a resurgence in Black arts and cultural production across, film, television, and literature. In this class, we will examine contemporary Black art that ranges across the genre categories of Science Fiction, Afro-futurism and the Afro-Gothic. We will read authors such as Nnendi Okorafor, Megan Giddings, N.K. Jemisin and others. We will explore popular television and films such as Lovecrat Country, Get Out, and Homecoming. While engaging with these various texts, students will grapple with and try to answer questions about contemporary Black life and art. How do these texts portray issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and Black history in the United States and abroad? How do these texts engage with important themes such as medical racism, labor, and racial capitalism, race and psychological terror and sexual politics? Students will leave the course with a better understanding of the genre categories Science Fiction, Afro-Futurism and Afro-Gothic as well as a deeper comprehension of key social issues and movements, like prisoner rights movements of the 1970s. Prerequsite: WRT 101 .