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Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture
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244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 29, 2023
Specifically read Dery’s seminal article ‘Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose’ in which he defined Afrofuturism:
Why do so few African Americans write science fiction, a genre whose close encounters with the Other-the stranger in a strange land-would seem uniquely suited to the concerns of African-American novelists? Yet, to my knowledge, only Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Steve Barnes, and Charles Saunders have chosen to write within the genre conventions of science fiction. This is especially perplexing in light of the fact that African Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies (branding, forced sterilization, the Tuskegee experiment, and tasers come readily to mind). [179-180]
Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture – and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future-might, for want of a better term, be called ‘Afrofuturism’. [180]
Of course, subsequent writers like Nnedi Okorafor in particular have had a lot to say about this … and Delany himself challenges Dery quite vigorously in their interview:
It’s struck me more and more over the years that one of the most forceful and distinguishing aspects of science fiction is that it’s marginal. It’s always at its most honest and most effective when it operates – and claims to be operating – from the margins. Whenever – sometimes just through pure enthusiasm for its topic – it claims to take center stage, I find it usually betrays itself in some way. I don’t want to see it operating from anyone’s center: black nationalism’s, feminism’s, gay rights’, pro-technology movements’, ecology movements’, or any other center.
Why do so few African Americans write science fiction, a genre whose close encounters with the Other-the stranger in a strange land-would seem uniquely suited to the concerns of African-American novelists? Yet, to my knowledge, only Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Steve Barnes, and Charles Saunders have chosen to write within the genre conventions of science fiction. This is especially perplexing in light of the fact that African Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies (branding, forced sterilization, the Tuskegee experiment, and tasers come readily to mind). [179-180]
Speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture – and, more generally, African-American signification that appropriates images of technology and a prosthetically enhanced future-might, for want of a better term, be called ‘Afrofuturism’. [180]
Of course, subsequent writers like Nnedi Okorafor in particular have had a lot to say about this … and Delany himself challenges Dery quite vigorously in their interview:
It’s struck me more and more over the years that one of the most forceful and distinguishing aspects of science fiction is that it’s marginal. It’s always at its most honest and most effective when it operates – and claims to be operating – from the margins. Whenever – sometimes just through pure enthusiasm for its topic – it claims to take center stage, I find it usually betrays itself in some way. I don’t want to see it operating from anyone’s center: black nationalism’s, feminism’s, gay rights’, pro-technology movements’, ecology movements’, or any other center.
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October 10, 2014A pretty dated collection, but with a few gems. Some essays I had to skim or skip (too heavy on the feminist art-speak), but the few good ones made it worth my while. YMMV. I picked it up specifically for the essay by de Landa.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews