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Afro-future females : Black writers chart science fiction's newest new-wave trajectory / edited by Marleen S. Barr.
Van Pelt Library PS648.S3 A346 2008
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Science fiction, American.
- Science fiction, American--History and criticism.
- American fiction--African American authors--History and criticism.
- American fiction--African American authors.
- American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism.
- American fiction--Women authors.
- Women and literature--United States--History--20th century.
- Women and literature.
- History.
- United States.
- Women and literature--United States--History--21st century.
- Physical Description:
- xxiv, 257 pages ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Columbus : Ohio State University Press, [2008]
- Summary:
- Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction's Newest New-Wave Trajectory, edited by Marleen S. Barr, is the first combined science fiction critical anthology and short story collection to focus upon black women via written and visual texts. The volume creates a dialogue with existing theories of Afro-Futurism in order to generate fresh ideas about how to apply race to science fiction studies in terms of gender. The contributors, including Hortense J. Spillers, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, and Steven Barnes, formulate a woman-centered Afro-Futurism by repositioning previously excluded fiction to redefine science fiction as a broader fantastic endeavor. They articulate a platform for scholars to mount a vigorous argument in favor of redefining science fiction to encompass varieties of fantastic writing and, therefore, to include a range of black women's writing that would otherwise be excluded.
- Afro-Future Females builds upon Barr's previous work in black science fiction and fills a gap in the literature. It is the first critical anthology to address the "blackness" of outer space fiction in terms of feminism, emphasizing that it is necessary to revise the very nature of a genre that has been constructed in such a way as to exclude its new black participants. Black science fiction writers alter genre conventions to change how we read and define science fiction itself. The work's main point: black science fiction is the most exciting literature of the nascent twenty-first century.
- Contents:
- Preface: "All At One Point" Conveys the Point, Period: Or, Black Science Fiction Is Bursting Out All Over ix
- Introductions: "Dark Matter" Matters
- Imaginative Encounters / Hortense J. Spillers 3
- Black to the Future: Afro-Futurism 1.0 / Mark Dery 6
- "On the Other Side of the Glass": The Television Roots of Black Science Fiction / Marleen S. Barr 14
- Essays: The Blackness of Outer Space Fiction as Blast(off) from the Past
- Becoming Animal in Black Women's Science Fiction / Madhu Dubey 31
- "God Is Change": Persuasion and Pragmatic Utopianism in Octavia E. Butler's Earthseed Novels / Ellen Peel 52
- Tananarive Due and Nalo Hopkinson Revisit the Reproduction of Mothering: Legacies of the Past and Strategies for the Future / Alcena Madeline Davis Rogan 75
- Close Encounters between Traditional and Nontraditional Science Fiction: Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Gayl Jones's Corregidora Sing the Time Travel Blues / Jennifer E. Henton 100
- Beyond the History We Know: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Nisi Shawl, and Jarla Tangh Rethink Science Fiction Tradition / De Witt Douglas Kilgore 119
- Responses to De Witt Douglas Kilgore Bubbling Champagne Power Trip / Nisi Shawl 130
- "Of Course People Can Fly" / Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu 131
- Carla Johnson/Jarla Tangh: A Close Encounter with My Pseudonym / Jarla Tangh 132
- Stories: Techno/Magic Sistahs Are Not the Sistahs from Another Planet
- The Book of Martha / Octavia E. Butler 135
- Double Consciousness / Andrea Hairston 151
- Dynamo Hum / Nisi Shawl 158
- The Ferryman / Sheree R. Thomas 167
- Herbal / Nalo Hopkinson 174
- Commentaries: Kindred Spirit
- On Octavia E. Butler / Tananarive Due 179
- Can a Brother Get Some Love? Sociobiology in Images of African-American Sensuality in Contemporary Cinema: Or, Why We'd Better the Hell Claim Vin Diesel as Our Own / Steven Barnes 182
- A Conversation with Samuel R. Delany about Sex, Gender, Race, Writing-and Science Fiction / Samuel R. Delany, Carl Freedman 191
- Black "Science Faction": An Interview with Kevin Willmott, Director and Writer of CSA, The Confederate States of America / Kevin Willmott, Marleen S. Barr 236
- Octavia's Healing Power: A Tribute to the Late Great Octavia E. Butler / Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu 241
- Afterword: The Big Bang: Or, the Inception of Scholarship about Black Women Science Fiction Writers / Marleen S. Barr 245
- Response to the Afterword: Connecting Metamorphoses: Italo Calvino's Mrs. Ph(i)NKo and I, Dr. Ph(d)SalvagGlo / Ruth Salvaggio 249.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references.
- ISBN:
- 9780814210789
- 0814210783
- OCLC:
- 181599771
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