Keywords

fiction, afrofuturism, science fiction, southern literature

Abstract

Passenger Pigeons, Dodos, Neanderthals is a short story collection rooted in Afrofuturism and Southern literature. Passenger Pigeons centers the experiences of queer Black American women in various settings, from Mars to rural Florida. The title story of the collection follows Teri, a human on Mars, attempting to integrate into a society of Martians who exoticize and tokenize her. In this story, I use science fiction as a vehicle to confront the microaggressions and overt racism people of color often experience in professional environments. “Rather Be the Devil,” is a fabulist story detailing the character Man’s journey to find his missing wife, Babette, who he believes has been kidnapped by the Devil. This story interrogates themes of misogynoir, queerness, and religion. “Rapture” explores the relationship between two elderly Black women as they hash out their decades of frustrations, set against the aftermath of the rapture. Each story in Passenger Pigeons sees Black women contending with the end of the world, literally and metaphorically. “Gongmudohaga” follows Scottie and her wife Chae-won living in a bunker after the apocalypse. In “Mule,” the empath Sanaya confronts her changing reality as her town’s new emotion keeper. These stories seek to demonstrate 1) that for queer Black women in particular, the world has ended, is ending, and will continue to end and 2) how we continue to persist despite centuries of targeted erasure. I have struggled to find a way my creative work can contribute anything at all to the queer people, POC, immigrants, and others suffering political oppression in my home state, but science fiction is uniquely suited to address political issues. I’ve come to view my work as an act of resistance and love letter to my fellow Southerners surviving our personal post apocalypse.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

Siew Hii

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Identifier

DP0053284

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