Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T20:49:48.379Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - Black Escapes and Black Wishlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Sherryl Vint
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
Get access

Summary

This chapter looks at how the notions of black escape and black wishland have been conceptualized in African American utopianism since the post-WWII conception of the Beloved Community, a conception mostly associated with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. Through its discussions of Sun Ra’s “Space is the Place” (1971), Parliament’s “Chocolate City” (1975), Reginald Hudlin’s “Space Traders” (1994), Octavia E. Butler’s “The Book of Martha” (2003), and Chesya Burke’s “The Teachings and Redemption of Ms. Fannie Lou Mason” (2011), this chapter argues that these texts, if read collectively, not only reveal that the debates between black utopians and antiutopians parallel those between the opponents and proponents of Afropessimism, but they also suggest that liberating black life from social death requires combining the best of Afropessimism and black antiutopian critique with the best of black aliveness, Afro-fabulation, and the black utopian imagination.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×