What is Afrofuturism?

Rone Shavers, Associate Professor in Department of English

In a recently published contribution to The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction (2024), Rone Shavers, Associate Professor in the Department of English, provides a definition of the term. Professor Shavers explains:

Afrofuturism is a term that is often used but rarely defined, let alone properly understood, this chapter first provides academics with a useful, scholarly definition of the term before it gives an easily digestible definition for laypeople. It then provides readers with a brief overview of Afrofuturism’s history and how Afrofuturism as an idea came about, with special attention being paid to explaining that the reason why the genre has been so difficult to define is because there are three distinct branches of Afrofuturism -- theoretical Afrofuturism (which analyses and interrogates Blackness as an ontological construction), critical Afrofuturism (which uses those theoretical ideas as a means to address and arrive at practical solutions to racial inequities), and aesthetic Afrofuturism (the most popular form, as it’s the one that is centered around the production of creative, speculative works) -- which intersect, but do not always perfectly align. The chapter then gives examples of the themes and tropes common to Afrofuturism, as well as mentioning many of the important figures who have worked and continue to work to promote and maintain Afrofuturism’s critical and creative influence. Finally, the chapter concludes not with a summation, but with a brief discourse outlining what can best be described as the potential future of Afrofuturism. Overall, the chapter gives both students and scholars alike an understanding of Afrofuturism’s basic contours, so that they will be well-equipped to move on to deeper, more sustained reading and study of the topic.