Twenty-First Century Afrofuturist Aliens

FitzPatrick, Jessica

doi:https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2020.6

Shifting to the Space of Third Contact

FitzPatrick, Jessica

Extrapolation (2020), 61, (1-2), 69–90.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2020.6
Language: English
Pages: 22

Abstract

It may seem odd that Afrofuturism, a dynamic movement, still employs alien figures. Sun-Ra’s extraterrestrial performances offered foundational alternatives to negative social inscriptions and deletions of African diaspora members. But while the 1970s positioned outer “space [a]s the place” of Black potentiality, I contend twenty-first-century Afrofuturists move beyond extraterrestrial Otherness into a re-engaging “third contact.” Extrapolating from Rachel Haywood Ferreira’s concept of “second contact” in Latin American SF, where colonial engagement served as first contact and extraterrestrial arrival as second, I posit “third contact” between Earthbound human factions (e.g., communities on opposing sides of the Black Atlantic or city citizens from distinct economic striations). I unearth the potentiality of third contact through literary works by authors Nnedi Okorafor, Tade Thompson, and N. K. Jemisin. Even so, Afrofuturism transcends textual formats. To celebrate this multimodality, I turn to Selly Raby Kane’s fashion shows, which offer tangible evidence of the spatial registers of third contact. These societal interventions occur in and revise what Edward Soja termed thirdspace. As such, Afrofuturist writers offer a way to reclaim Black futures on this planet, despite present continued control of violent and discriminatory histories.

FormatArticle

£25.00

READ THIS ARTICLE

If you have private access to this content, please log in with your username and password here

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “The danger of a single story.” TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript?language=en. Accessed 15 Aug. 2015. Google Scholar

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. “Press Release on the Implication of the Same Sex Marriage [Prohibition] Act 2013 on Human Rights Defenders in Nigeria.” 6 Feb. 2014, www.achpr.org/pressrelease/detail?id=232. Accessed 14 Aug. 2015. Google Scholar

Alien Nation. 17 Nov. 2006–14 Jan. 2007, Institute of Contemporary Arts and Institute of International Visual Arts, London, 2006. Google Scholar

Anderson, Reynaldo, and Charles E. Jones, editors. Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness. Lexington Books, 2016. Google Scholar

Butler, Octavia E. Lilith’s Brood. Warner Books, 2000. Google Scholar

Carroll, Siobhan. “Atopia / Non-Place.” The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space, edited by Robert T. Tally Jr., Routledge, 2017, pp. 219–230. Google Scholar

DeIuliis, David, and Jeff Lohr. “Rewriting the Narrative: Communicology and the Speculative Discourse of Afrofuturism.” Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, Lexington Books, 2016, pp. 167–184. Google Scholar

Dennis, Amanda. “Heterotopias: The Possible and Real in Foucault, Beckett, and Calvino.” The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space, edited by Robert T. Tally Jr., Routledge, 2017, pp. 231–246. Google Scholar

District 9. Directed by Neill Blomkamp, TriStar Pictures, 2009. Google Scholar

Eshun, Kodwo. “Further Considerations on Afrofuturism.” CR: The New Centennial Review, vol. 3, no. 2, 2003, pp. 287–302. Google Scholar

Faucheux, Amandine H. “Race and Sexuality in Nalo Hopkinson’s Oeuvre; or, Queer Afrofuturism.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 44, no. 3, 2017, pp. 563–586. Google Scholar

“Featured Work: Selly Raby Kane: Alien Cartoon, autumn/winter 2013/2014 collection.” Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design, Vitra Design Museum, makingafrica.net/2015/04/featured-workselly-raby-kane-alien-cartoon-autumnwinter-20132014-collection/. Accessed 15 Aug. 2015. Google Scholar

Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces: Utopia and Heterotopias.” Rethinking Architecture: a Reader in Cultural Theory, edited by Neil Leach, Routledge, 1997, pp. 330–336. Google Scholar

gamEdze and gamedZe. “Anxiety, Afropessimism, and the University Shutdown.” South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 118, no. 1, 2019, pp. 215–225. Google Scholar

Gill, John, Jens Hoffmann, and Gilane Tawadros, editors. Alien Nation. Institute of Contemporary Arts and Institute of International Visual Arts, 2006. Google Scholar

Haile, Rahawa. “Review: Janelle Monáe Dirty Computer.” Pitchfork, 1 May 2018, pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/janelle-monae-dirty-computer/. Accessed 9 Sept. 2019. Google Scholar

Hartman, Saidiya V. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford UP, 1997. Google Scholar

Haywood Ferreira, Rachel. “Second Contact: The First Contact Story in Latin American Science Fiction.” Parabolas of Science Fiction, edited by Brian Attebery and Veronica Hollinger, Wesleyan UP, 2013, pp. 70–88. Google Scholar

Jemisin, N. K. The City We Became. Orbit, 2020. Google Scholar

Jemisin, N. K. “Creating races.” N. K. Jemisin, Blog. 10 Aug. 2015, nkjemisin.com/2015/08/creating-races/. Accessed 13 Sept. 2019. Google Scholar

Jemisin, N. K. The Fifth Season. Orbit, 2015. Google Scholar

Jemisin, N. K. The Obelisk Gate. Orbit, 2016. Google Scholar

Jemisin, N. K. The Stone Sky. Orbit, 2017. Google Scholar

Jones, Esther. “African Women’s Science Fiction and Narrative Medicine: Difference, Ethics, and Empathy.” Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, Lexington Books, 2016, pp. 185–206. Google Scholar

Kahiu, Wanuri. “Fun, Fierce and Fantastical African Art.” Afrobubblegum, TED Talk 2017, www.ted.com/talks/wanuri_kahiu_fun_fierce_and_fantastical_african_art?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare. Accessed 8 Jan. 2019. Google Scholar

Kane, Selly Raby. “Selly Raby Kane on Otherworldly Fashion in Dakar.” Design Indaba Conference 2015, Design Indaba, 16 May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or4VysCFbuY. Accessed 16 Nov. 2018. Google Scholar

Lavender III, Isiah. “Critical Race Theory.” The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint, Routledge, 2009, pp. 185–194. Google Scholar

Maucione, Jessica. “Teaching Literary Cartographies of Race, Space, Place, and Displacement.” Teaching Space, Place, and Literature, edited by Robert T. Tally Jr., Routledge, 2018, pp. 49–57. Google Scholar

Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. U of California P, 2001. Google Scholar

The Nest Collective. “Let This Be a Warning—A VR Short Film.” The Nest Collective, www.thisisthenest.com/ltbaw-2017/. Accessed Jan 2, 2019. Google Scholar

@Nnedi (Nnedi Okorafor). “I wish people would stop calling my work afrofuturism (call it Africanfuturist. I’ve said this many times and need to say it more). I especially wish people would stop calling my fantasy narratives (better called africanjujuism) ‘afrofuturism’. I think that’s the most nonsense.” Twitter, 17 Mar. 2019, 10:25 a.m., twitter.com/Nnedi/status/1107286731446018053. Accessed 12 Mar. 2020. Google Scholar

@Nnedi (Nnedi Okorafor). “the fact that it’s hard for people to differentiate is indicative of a lot of things to me. which is why I will keep repeating myself.” Twitter, 24 Mar. 2019, 10:25 a.m., twitter.com/Nnedi/status/1107286731446018053. Accessed 12 Mar. 2020. Google Scholar

O’Connell, Hugh Charles. “‘We Are Change’: The Novum as Event in Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon.” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry, vol. 3, no. 3, 2016, pp. 291–312. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. Binti. Tor, 2015. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. Binti: Home. Tor, 2017. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. Binti: The Night Masquerade. Tor, 2017. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Finding Creativity in the Unexpected. TedBooks, 2019. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. Coming and Going [Afterword]. “Homecoming.” 2018. LaGuardia: A Very Modern Story of Immigration, no. 1. Art and cover art by Tana Ford, color artist James Devlin, editor Karen Berger, Dark Horse Books, 2018. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. “Homecoming.” 2018. LaGuardia: A Very Modern Story of Immigration, no. 1. Art and cover art by Tana Ford, color artist James Devlin, editor Karen Berger, Dark Horse Books, 2019. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. “Insight into the Lagoon.” Nnedi’s Wahala Zone Blog, 25 Sept. 2015, http://nnedi.blogspot.com/2015/09/insight-into-lagoon.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2016. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. Lagoon. Hodder & Stoughton, 2014. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. “Magical Futurism.” Locus Online Perspectives, 17 May 2015, locusmag.com/Perspectives/2015/05/nnedi-okorafor-magical-futurism. Accessed 13 Sept. 2019. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. The Sentinel Nigeria Interview. Interview by Unoma Azuah. Sentinel Nigeria, Issue 6, 2011, sentinelnigeria.org/online/issue-6/interviews/nnedi-okorafor. Accessed 2014. Google Scholar

Okorafor, Nnedi. “Travel Ban.” LaGuardia: A Very Modern Story of Immigration, no. 2. Art and cover art by Tana Ford, color artist James Devlin, editor Karen Berger, Dark Horse Books, 2019. Google Scholar

Puc, Samantha. “EXCLUSIVE: Nnedi Okorafor’s & Tana Ford’s LAGUARDIA Tackles Travel Bans & (Space) Aliens.” The Beat, 29 Nov. 2018, www.comicsbeat.com/exclusive-nnedi-okorafors-tana-fords-laguardia-tackles-travel-bans-space-aliens/. Accessed 14 Nov. 2019. Google Scholar

Samatar, Sofia. “Toward a Planetary History of Afrofuturism.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 48, no. 4, 2017, pp. 175–191. Google Scholar

Shapiro, Lila. “For Reigning Fantasy Queen N. K. Jemisin, There’s No Escape from Reality: ‘I’m Writing about Dragons as a Black Woman, and It’s Fucking Political.’” Vulture, 29 Nov. 2018. www.vulture.com/2018/11/nk-jemisin-fifth-season-broken-earth-trilogy.html. Accessed 15 Sept. 2019. Google Scholar

Sinker, Mark. “Loving the Alien in Advance of the Landing.” The Wire, no. 96, 1992, pp. 30–33. Google Scholar

Soja, Edward. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Blackwell, 1996. Google Scholar

Spillers, Hortense J. Black, White and in Color: Essays on American Literature and Culture. U of Chicago P, 2003. Google Scholar

Sun Ra. “Space is the Place.” Space is the Place, Blue Thumb Records, 1973. Google Scholar

Thompson, Tade. Rosewater. 2016. Orbit, 2018. Google Scholar

Thompson, Tade. The Rosewater Insurrection. Orbit, 2019. Google Scholar

Thompson, Tade. The Rosewater Redemption. Orbit, 2019. Google Scholar

van Veen, tobias c. “The Armageddon Effect: Afrofuturism and the Chronopolitics of Alien Nation.” Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, edited by Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones, Lexington Books, 2016, pp. 63–90. Google Scholar

Westphal, Bertrand. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces. 2007. Translated by Robert Tally Jr., Palgrave MacMillan, 2011. Google Scholar

Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-fi and Fantasy Culture. Chicago Review Press, 2013. Google Scholar

Yaszek, Lisa. “Afrofuturism, Science Fiction, and the History of the Future.” Socialism and Democracy, vol. 20, no. 3, 2006, pp. 41–60. Google Scholar

If you have private access to this content, please log in with your username and password here

Details

Author details

FitzPatrick, Jessica

Extrapolation