Description
Book SynopsisAn exploration of Francophone African literary imaginations and expressions through the lens of Afrofuturism
Generally attributed to the Western imagination, science fiction is a literary genre that has expressed projected technological progress since the Industrial Revolution. However, certain fantastical elements in African literary expressions lend themselves to science fiction interpretations, both utopian and dystopian. When the concept of science is divorced from its Western, rationalist, materialist, positivist underpinnings, science fiction represents a broad imaginative space that supersedes the limits of this world. Whether it be on the moon, under the sea, or elsewhere within the imaginative universe, Afrofuturist readings of select films, novels, short stories, plays, and poems reveal a similarly emancipatory African future that is firmly rooted in its own cultural mythologies, cosmologies, and philosophies.
Isaac Joslin identifies the contours and moda
Trade Review
“A sophisticated and compelling investigation of Afrofuturism as an alternative discourse for imagining (and potentially building) a fairer world. Isaac Vincent Joslin offers incisive theoretical observations and deep explorations of numerous African francophone texts, amounting to a valuable contribution to global literary and cinematic scholarship.” -- Vlad Dima, author of The Beautiful Skin: Football, Fantasy, and Cinematic Bodies in Africa
“A remarkable contribution to African literary and cultural studies.” -- Alexie Tcheuyap, author of Postnationalist African Cinemas
“Written in an accessible and elegant style, [this] book is a veritable tour de force. In this highly original, innovative, and thought-provoking exploration of speculative, futurist science fiction in the Francophone tradition, Isaac Vincent Joslin demonstrates the unprecedented nature of the interconnected crises facing global society in a time of tremendous uncertainty.” -- Keith Moser, author of Contemporary French Environmental Thought in the Post-COVID-19 Era
“A refreshing scrutiny of African cultural productions, Isaac Vincent Joslin’s book raises key questions concerning the politics of aesthetics. The study explores both male and female authors, as well as both literature and cinema, which is what makes the project strong and fascinating. Because it proposes groundbreaking perspectives on ‘humanities and the future of Africa,’ this is a work for the pedagogy of African literatures and the indispensable discussion of humanism and futurism in African contexts.” -- Hervé Tchumkam, Southern Methodist University
A seminal and groundbreaking study [and] a unique and highly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library collections. * Midwest Book Review *
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Africanfuturism, Development, and Humanities
1. Afrofuturist Ecolinguistics: Redefining the “Science” of Science Fiction
2. Birthing the Future: Métissage and Cultural Hybridity in Francophone African Women’s Writing
3. Child Soldiers: Reinscribing the Human in a Culture of Perpetual War
4. Alienation, Estrangement, and Dreams of Departure: Emigration and the Politics of Global Inequality in (and out of) Francophone Africa
5. “We Don’t Need No Education” Alternative Pedagogies and Epistemologies in Bassek Ba Kobhio’s Sango Malo (1990) and Le Silence de la forêt (2003)
6. Paradis Artificiels: The Lottery of Global Economies in Djibril Diop Mambety’s Le Franc, Imunga Ivanga’s Dôlè, and Fadika Kramo-Lanciné’s Wariko
7. Arguing against the Shame of the State: Sony Labou Tansi’s Ecocritical Womanism and Gaiacene Planetarity
Conclusion: Toward an Afrofuturist Ecohumanist Philosophy of Experience
Notes
References
Index
