Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Histories of the Present
- Part II African American Genres
- 4 Afrofuturism and the Speculative Turn
- 5 The Black Lyric
- 6 Neo-Slave Imaginaries
- 7 Incarceration and Confinement Literature
- 8 Satire, Comedy, and Critique
- 9 Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds
- Part III Mapping New Identities and Geographies
- Part IV Critical Approaches
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
4 - Afrofuturism and the Speculative Turn
from Part II - African American Genres
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2023
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Contemporary African American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Histories of the Present
- Part II African American Genres
- 4 Afrofuturism and the Speculative Turn
- 5 The Black Lyric
- 6 Neo-Slave Imaginaries
- 7 Incarceration and Confinement Literature
- 8 Satire, Comedy, and Critique
- 9 Popular Romance and Literary Undergrounds
- Part III Mapping New Identities and Geographies
- Part IV Critical Approaches
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
This chapter discusses Afrofuturism with reference to a wide range of literary works, influential critical and theoretical accounts, and artistic manifestos, identifying its overlaps and distinctions from the broader speculative turn apparent in African American literature from the 1980s onward. The chapter focuses on two rubrics that lend cohesion to the array of genres, styles, and aesthetic principles associated with the label of Afrofuturism: the politics of time and the idea of race as technology. Through various devices of temporal dislocation, Afrofuturist works invent revisionist histories, shatter consensus narratives about the present, and challenge prevailing discourses of futurity. In addition, the chapter argues that Afrofuturist literature at its best defamiliarizes established ways of reading race through its innovative engagement with race-making techniques and technologies ranging from genre conventions to genetic engineering.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023