Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement

by Isiah Lavender III

Growing out of the music scene, afrofuturism has emerged as an important aesthetic through films such as  Black Panther  and  Get Out.  While the significance of these sonic and visual avenues for afrofuturism cannot be underestimated, literature remains fundamental to understanding its full dimensions. Isiah Lavender’s  Afrofuturism Rising  explores afrofuturism as a narrative practice that enables users to articulate the interconnection between science, technology, and race across centuries.
 
By engaging with authors as diverse as Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Samuel R. Delany Jr., Pauline Hopkins, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright,  Afrofuturism Rising  extends existing scholarly conversations about who creates and what is created via science fiction. Through a trans-historical rereading of texts by these authors as science fiction, Lavender highlights the ways black experience in America has always been an experience of spatial and temporal dislocation akin to science fiction. Compelling and ambitious in scope,  Afrofuturism Rising  redefines both science fiction and literature as a whole.
 

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2019

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoughtful and provocative study of literary precursors to the Afrofuturist movement, skillfully and convincing locating traces of science-fictional thinking in black authors whose works are rarely considered in those categories.

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for some thesis research I’m currently engaged in, and I’m so glad I got the opportunity! Lavender’s engagement with afrofuturism as an aesthetic and as a movement is more comprehensive than any work I’ve read on the subject. Although I’m not fully convinced by all of the points Lavender makes, the theoretical framework he sets up—including the three elements of afrofuturism that he names—seems sound and effective for understanding and analyzing Black literature.