Image: Participants in the Afrofuturism Writers' Pavilion at the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities. Ms. Johnson is in the back row, far right. Front row, left to right: Maurice Broaddus, Dr. Chesya Burke. Back row, left to right: P. Djèlí Clark, Dr. Iheoma Nwachukwu, Bill Campbell, Dr. Michele Tracey Berger, Tenea D. Johnson. Image Credit: Dr. Michele Tracey Berger.

Welcome to Week 11 of the ZORA! Festival 2020-2021 Afrofuturism Course!

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?"

Note: Each week the course coordinator will release new content related to the conference themes. 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/.

Conversations

In the Conversations segment we share resources featuring participants in the 2020-2021 ZORA! Festival Afrofuturism Conference.

This week’s featured Conversation is a podcast interview with writer Tenea D. Johnson, a participant in the Afrofuturism Writers’ Pavilion at the 2020 ZORA! Festival.

Ms. Johnson is a speculative fiction author, poet, and musician. She is the author of several books, including Smoketown: A Novel (2011), as well as Starting Friction (2008), a collection of poetry and prose. In this conversation, she talks about the building of Black future worlds.

This interview was conducted by Grace Chun, project coordinator at the University of Florida Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, during the ZORA! Festival Afrofuturism Conference on Jan. 30, 2020. It lasts about 25 minutes.

You can find the interview here.

Explorations

In the Explorations segment we pose a series of questions for further investigation and class discussion, based on the featured Conversation. As you listen to the podcast interview, consider the following questions:

• Ms. Johnson defines Afrofuturism as "a convenient term for black speculative fiction." What does she mean by black speculative fiction? Which literary genres does she associate with it?
• Ms. Johnson talks about bringing technology -- a key element of Afrofuturism -- into her speculative fiction. She gives an example from her R/evolution novella, which involves “biogenetic adaptations” among the privileged and an offer of “genetic reparations” for the poor and marginalized. How might such fictional/non-realistic worlds inspire reflection on very real historical and contemporary issues?
• What role does Ms. Johnson see for Afrofuturism in this moment? What can society learn from works of speculative fiction?
• What, in Ms. Johnson’s view, can contemporary Afrofuturists learn from Zora Neale Hurston? Which works by Hurston does she enjoy most?
• What is her hope for Afrofuturism/Black Speculative Fiction as a field?

References

Authors, artists, and works referenced in the podcast include:

• Samuel R. Delany
• Octavia Butler
• Gabriel García Márquez
• Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987)
• Black Panther (2018)
• Alien (1979)
• Aliens (1986)
• District 9 (2009)
• Atlantics (2019)

Up next: An interview with Dr. Iheoma Nwachukwu, a fiction writer and poet from Nigeria. In this conversation, Dr. Nwachukwu reflects on the realities of African culture captured by contemporary Afrofuturist practice.