First-Year Seminar: Afro-Futures: A First-Year Seminar for the End of the World

3 units

Afrofuturism as a concept is only 25 years old, but the aesthetic practice of imagining and constructing alternative techno-futures, presents, and pasts while placing Blackness and people from Africa and the diaspora at the center of these narratives certainly predates the word. As a genre that includes literature, music, and visual arts, Afrofuturism is closely linked to magical realism, science fiction, and Afropunk. In this course, we will conceive of Afrofuturism as a global practice. In the spirit of imagining alternative histories, this course resists the standard narrative of the genre that it began in the West and was then later picked up by African artists. The readings and syllabus are designed to bring together literature, music, and film from African artists and intellectuals, who often resist bounded categories but nevertheless engage in the practice of daring to imagine otherwise.