Black Speculative Fiction: World-Making and Alternative Universes, Science Fiction and Fantasy

This class surveys the genre, including the work of George Schuyler, Nalo Hopkinson, Samuel R. Delaney, N.K. Jemison, Octavia Butler, Coslon Whitehead, and Tananarive Due, along with everything related, from comic books to album covers to filmic re-writings of canonical science fiction and fantasy works. The goal is to understand the history of the genre, its relationship to histories of anti-blackness and ideologies of black liberation, and its contributions to speculative fiction more broadly.