Afrofuturist poetics in contemporary productions

Abstract

This article is configured as an essay of critical mapping about the state of the question about Afrofuturist poetics in contemporary productions, articulating conceptual debate and reading of interart objects. It is based on the formulation of the term by Mark Dery (1994), in Black to the Future, and its critical reappropriations in Ytasha L. Womack (2013), in Afrofuturism: the world of black sci-fi and fantasy culture, in order to discuss the erasure of black bodies in futuristic narratives and the dispute for the imagination of becoming. This framework is then related to the problem of coloniality and its regimes of representation, with support from Kehinde Andrews (2023), in The New Age of Empires: How Racism and Colonialism Still Dominate the World, and Françoise Vergès (2023), in Decolonizing the Museum: Program of Absolute Disorder, notably in the concept of "spectral presence". On the theoretical level, the reflection mobilizes Fredric Jameson (2021), in Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, and Adam Roberts (2018), in The True History of Science Fiction: From Prejudice to Conquering the Masses, to examine science fiction as a way of thinking about politics, temporality, and technology. On the analytical level, the text brings together pop culture and literature productions, discussing Beyoncé, Lorraine O'Grady (1983), Black Panther (2018) and Afrofuturist narratives such as Octavia Butler (2020), Nnedi Okorafor (2021) and Fábio Kabral (2017), in addition to indicating reverberations in Brazil.