ZORA! Festival Academic Conference: 2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus

Welcome to Afrofuturism & the Hurston Legacy, a collection of open educational resources (OERs) and open-access course syllabi for the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts & Humanities and its 2020-2024 Afrofuturism Conference Cycle.

Our mission, as stated by Afrofuturism Conference Cycle curator Dr. Julian Chambliss, is to "bring together scholars, artists, teachers, the public -- people who are animated by Afrofuturism as it exists today -- and connect them to a broader legacy of The Black Imaginary."

Please begin by reviewing About the Course for an introduction and orientation to the 2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus, which bridges the organizing themes of the first two years of the five-year Afrofuturism Conference Cycle: "What is Afrofuturism?" and "What is the Sound of Afrofuturism?"

Content posted here will remain publicly accessible and may be incorporated into other courses, in part or in full, via links to this site. Suggested citation: French, Scot. Syllabus for ZORA! Festival Afrofuturism Course, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Fall 2020-Spring 2021. STARS, https://stars.library.ucf.edu/afrofuturism_syllabus_about/.


Syllabus Schedule

The course consists of weekly Conversations & Explorations leading up to, through, and beyond the live-streamed 2021 Afrofuturism Conference. We invite you to participate in this ongoing Conversation/Exploration and make plans to attend the 2021 Afrofuturism Conference scheduled for Jan. 28-29, 2021!

New materials will be released each week, beginning Nov. 1, 2020. You can find a link to each week's content on this page as it is published.

Part I: Reflecting on the 2020 ZORA! Festival Conference Theme: What is Afrofuturism?

Part II: "Live" From the 2021 ZORA! Festival Academic Conference Program: What is the Sound of Afrofuturism?

Part III: Reflecting on the 2021 Afrofuturism Conference Theme: What is the Sound of Afrofuturism?

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Browse the ZORA! Festival Academic Conference: 2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus Collections:

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 16 - Dr. Erik Steinskog on Speculative Sounds: Aural History, Sonic Fiction, and Afrofuturism

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 17 - Dr. Paul Ortiz on Oral History, Zora Neale Hurston, and the Black Freedom Struggle through Storytelling and Song

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 18 - Dr. Toniesha Taylor on "Mocked to Death by Time": Zora Neale Hurston as the Sound of Afrofuture Present Past to Future Past

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 19 - Panel Discussion on "What is the Sound of Afrofuturism?"

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 20 - "A Past Unremembered: The Transformative Legacy of the Black Speculative Imagination" Exhibit

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 21

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 22

About the Course: "Afrofuturism & the Hurston Legacy"

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 1 - Interview with Dr. Julian Chambliss

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 2 - Webinar on Afrofuturism

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 3 - Interview with Dr. Kinitra Brooks

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 4 - Interview with Dr. Isiah Lavender III

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 5 - Podcast Interview with Dr. Reynaldo Anderson: The Black Speculative Tradition

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 6 - Dr. Michele Berger on The Afrofuturist Aesthetic

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 7

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 8 - Maurice Broaddus

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 9 - Dr. Chesya Burke on Reimagining the Future

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 10 - P. Djèlí Clark on Retrofuturism

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 11 - Tenea D. Johnson on Building Black Future Worlds

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 12 - Dr. Iheoma Nwachukwu on The Reality of Afrofuturism

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 13 - Dr. Julian Chambliss’s Spotify Playlist on The Sound of Afrofuturism: Mapping the Sonic Imagination

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 15 - Dr. Regina N. Bradley on "The Demo Tape Ain’t Nobody Wanna Hear": Hip Hop, OutKast, and Black Culture and Identity in the Post-Civil Rights Movement South