Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction focused on such feminist themes as: gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, reproduction, and environment. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940 is a 1931 Harlem Renaissance satire on American race relations by George S. Schuyler. In the novel, Schuyler targets both the Ku Klux Klan and NAACP in condemning the ways in which race functions as both an obsession and a commodity in early twentieth-century America. The central premise of the novel is that an African American scientist invents a process that can transform Black people into white people. Those who have internalized white racism, those who are tired of inferior opportunities socially and economically, and those who simply want to expand their sexual horizons, undergo the procedure. As the country "whitens", the economic importance of racial segregation in the South as a means of maintaining elite white economic and social status becomes increasingly apparent, as the South relies on Black labor through sharecropping.
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history and magic realism, and can also be found in music.
African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. Olaudah Equiano was an African man who wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, an autobiography published in 1789 that became one of the first influential works about the transatlantic slave trade and the experiences of enslaved Africans. His work was published sixteen years after Phillis Wheatley's work. She was an enslaved African woman who became the first African American to publish a book of poetry, which was published in 1773. Her collection, was titled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.
Black science fiction or black speculative fiction is an umbrella term that covers a variety of activities within the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres where people of the African diaspora take part or are depicted. Some of its defining characteristics include a critique of the social structures leading to black oppression paired with an investment in social change. Black science fiction is "fed by technology but not led by it." This means that black science fiction often explores with human engagement with technology instead of technology as an innate good.
Artificial intelligence is a recurrent theme in science fiction, whether utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the dangers.
Dark Matter is an anthology series of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and essays produced by people of African descent. The editor of the series is Sheree Thomas. The first book in the series, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000), won the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. The second book in the Dark Matter series, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2005. A forthcoming third book in the series is tentatively named Dark Matter: Africa Rising. This was finally published at the end of 2022 under the title Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, from Tor Books.
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional symbolical appearances in other genres. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil is a literary work by W. E. B. Du Bois. Published in 1920, the text incorporates autobiographical information as well as essays, spirituals, and poems that were all written by Du Bois himself.
Dark Princess, written by sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois in 1928, is one of his five historical novels. One of Du Bois's favorite works, the novel explores the beauty of people of color around the world. This was part of Du Bois' use of fiction to explore his times in a way not possible in non-fiction history. He expressed fully imagined lives of his characters, using them to explore the richness and beauty of black culture. The novel was not well received when published. It was criticized for its expression of eroticism as well as for what some critics thought was a failed attempt at social realism.
Afro-Surrealism is a genre or school of art and literature. In 1974, Amiri Baraka used the term to describe the work of Henry Dumas. D. Scot Miller in 2009 wrote "The Afro-surreal Manifesto" in which he says: "Afro-Surrealism sees that all 'others' who create from their actual, lived experience are surrealist ...." The manifesto delineates Afro-Surrealism from Surrealism and Afro-Futurism. The manifesto lists ten tenets that Afro-Surrealism follows including how "Afro-Surrealists restore the cult of the past", and how "Afro-Surreal presupposes that beyond this visible world, there is an invisible world striving to manifest, and it is our job to uncover it".
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement, close to the hopepunk movement, that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to do it yourself and the countercultural, post-capitalist, and sometimes decolonial aspects of creating such a future.
The term Chicanafuturism was originated by scholar Catherine S. Ramírez which she introduced in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies in 2004. The term is a portmanteau of 'chicana' and 'futurism'. The word 'chicana' refers to a woman or girl of Mexican origin or descent. However, 'Chicana' itself serves as a chosen identity for many female Mexican Americans in the United States, to express self-determination and solidarity in a shared cultural, ethnic, and communal identity while openly rejecting assimilation. Ramírez created the concept of Chicanafuturism as a response to white androcentrism that she felt permeated science-fiction and American society. Chicanafuturism can be understood as part of a larger genre of Latino futurisms.
Africanfuturism is a cultural aesthetic and philosophy of science that centers on the fusion of African culture, history, mythology, point of view, with technology based in Africa and not limiting to the diaspora. It was coined by Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor in 2019 in a blog post as a single word. Nnedi Okorafor defines Africanfuturism as a sub-category of science fiction that is "directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view..and...does not privilege or center the West," is centered with optimistic "visions in the future," and is written by "people of African descent" while rooted in the African continent. As such its center is African, often does extend upon the continent of Africa, and includes the Black diaspora, including fantasy that is set in the future, making a narrative "more science fiction than fantasy" and typically has mystical elements. It is different from Afrofuturism, which focuses mainly on the African diaspora, particularly the United States. Works of Africanfuturism include science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, horror and magic realism.
Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room is an art exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The exhibit, which opened on November 5, 2021, uses a period room format of installation to envision the past, present, and future home of someone who lived in Seneca Village, a largely African American settlement which was destroyed to make way for the construction of Central Park in the mid-1800s.
The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer is a collection of short fiction by Janelle Monáe, written in collaboration with Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas. The collection, which has been described as Afrofuturist and cyberpunk, is Monáe's debut literary work. It is based on the world of her 2018 album Dirty Computer, as well as the accompanying short film of the same name. The book has received critical acclaim.
Rone Shavers is an American author, literature critic, and reviewer. He is an Associate Professor of English at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Ytasha L. Womack is an American writer, filmmaker, and cultural critic recognized for her work in Afrofuturism, race, and speculative fiction. She is most known for her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture (2013). Womack blends storytelling with academic analysis to provide perspectives on how Black culture interacts with ideas of the future and technology.
