Race and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction

This virtual course explores narratives of black girl and womanhood through the intersections of Afrofuturism, black feminist thought, and black queer studies in speculative fiction authored by black women and gender-diverse people. This course will address how envisioning black futures is profoundly connected to the work of reimagining black pasts. Together we will explore how black women have long engaged the political practice of writing themselves into the future, even as others were writing them out of it. Students will be introduced to a range of texts—literary, cinematic, sonic, and visual—that range from Harriet Jacobs, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, and Janelle Monaé.