Otherworldly Videos: White House, Black President

With the next presidential election only a few months away, let us look back on the symbolism of a black president through speculative film and think about the new considerations we must think about now that we have one. In a 1961 speech at the Liberation Committee for Africa, James Baldwin offered a critical response […]

A Speculative Tribute to Harriet Tubman

Yesterday, I wrote a post about historical revisionism, which included the whitewashing of Harriet Tubman in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Today, I want to showcase artists who have created speculative fiction with Harriet Tubman. * Pierre Bennu of Exit the Apple‘s Black Moses Barbie mock commercials: #1 #2 #3 These commercials “for a Black Moses […]

Otherworldly Videos: Invisible Universe

Invisible Universe: A History of Blackness in Speculative Fiction documentary trailer (dir. M. Asli Dukan) A history of blackness in speculative fiction explores the relationship between the Black body and popular fantasy, horror and science fiction literature and film and the alternative perspectives produced by creators of color. This documentary features interviews with major writers, […]

Modern Griots Review: Alicia McCalla’s Breaking Free

Are you 17 years-old or do you remember when you were? What would you do if your genetics gave you special powers? If suddenly your mother was taken away by a corrupt governmental agency? If your family expects you to join “the revolution?” And all you want to do is live a normal life and […]

Moving on the Wires: Beasts of the Southern Wild

The southern United States is known for many natural and man-made disasters. From the Mississippi Flood of 1927, which inspired the song “When the Levee Breaks,” to Hurricane Katrina to the BP oil spill, the South has experienced several apocalyptic events. Not only that, our entire world is dealing with rapidly changing climates, melting icecaps […]

The My-Stery: Musing About Native Steampunk

I was going to do a post on how all our creations are technology (and even we are in a sense technology), and how that applies to definitions of afrofuturism, but I will probably do later. First, I will like to reblog a post I read on tumblr from Moniquilliloquies about Indigenous American cultures and […]

What Is Afrofuturism? Part 10: SteamFunk

T-Pain feat. Tay Dizm – “Never Leave Her” Balogun Ojetade from Chronicles of Harriet wrote a great post about movements and more specifically, the Steamfunk movement. Here is part of it: … Steamfunk: A Movement Within A Movement Steamfunk is narrowly defined as “a person, style of dress or subgenre of fiction that seeks to bring […]

Moving On the Wires: The Abandon

NEWS! Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Keith Josef Adkins is preparing to shoot a pilot for a new TV show called The Abandon, which will feature an all-black cast. Adkins, who was once a TV writer for the show Girlfriends, will be not only be a writer, but also a director and producer of the pilot.This […]

Otherwordly Videos: Deluge

Via Liberator Magazine “Nijla Mu’min’s “Deluge” / Magical Realism, post-BP oil spill New Orleans, and Black Mermaids” By Kameelah Rasheed Nijla Baseema Mu’min is a writer and filmmaker from the San Francisco Bay Area. A 2007 graduate of UC Berkeley, she is now pursuing a dual MFA degree in Film Directing and Writing at Calarts. […]

Moving on the Wires: “Space Into Time: Africa In Science Fiction”

In relation to my earlier post on the museum trip I went on, I am posting this lecture about an exhibition on the portrayal of Africa and science fiction. The lecturers discuss how Africa is used as a backdrop in some science fiction work and also its place in the science and speculative fiction world. […]