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Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction’s Newest New-Wave Trajectory, edited by Marleen S. Barr, is the first combined science fiction critical anthology and short story collection to focus upon black women via written and visual texts. The volume creates a dialogue with existing theories of Afro-Futurism in order to generate fresh ideas about how to apply race to science fiction studies in terms of gender. The contributors, including Hortense Spillers, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, and Steven Barnes, formulate a woman-centered Afro-Futurism by repositioning previously excluded fiction to redefine science fiction as a broader fantastic endeavor. They articulate a platform for scholars to mount a vigorous argument in favor of redefining science fiction to encompass varieties of fantastic writing and, therefore, to include a range of black women’s writing that would otherwise be excluded. Afro-Future Females builds upon Barr’s previous work in black science fiction and fills a gap in the literature. It is the first critical anthology to address the “blackness” of outer space fiction in terms of feminism, emphasizing that it is necessary to revise the very nature of a genre that has been constructed in such a way as to exclude its new black participants. Black science fiction writers alter genre conventions to change how we read and define science fiction itself. The work’s main point: black science fiction is the most exciting literature of the nascent twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Title Page, Copyright
  2. pp. i-iv
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  1. Table of Contents
  2. pp. v-vii
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  1. Preface: "All At One Point" Conveys the Point, Period.
  2. pp. ix-xxiv
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  1. Part 1. Introductions: "Dark Matter" Matters
  2. p. 1
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  1. 1. Imaginative Encounters
  2. Hortense J. Spillers
  3. pp. 3-5
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  1. 2. Black to the Future: Afro-Futurism 1.0
  2. Mark Dery
  3. pp. 6-13
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  1. 3. "On the Other Side of the Glass:" The Television Roots of Black Science Fiction
  2. Marleen S. Barr
  3. pp. 14-27
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  1. Part 2. Essays: The Blackness of Outer Space Fiction Blast(off) from the Past
  2. p. 29
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  1. 4. Becoming Animal in Black Women's Science Fiction
  2. Madhu Dubey
  3. pp. 31-51
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  1. 5. "God Is Change:" Persuasion and Pragmatic Utopianism in Octavia E. Butler's Earthseed Novels
  2. Ellen Peel
  3. pp. 52-74
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  1. 6. Tananarive Due and Nalo Hopkinson Revisit the Reproduction of Mothering: Legacies of the Past and Strategies for the Future
  2. Alcena Madeline Davis Rogan
  3. pp. 75-99
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  1. 7. Close Encounters between Traditional and Nontraditional Science Fiction: Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Gayl Jones's Corredgidora Sing the Time Travel Blues
  2. Jennifer E. Henton
  3. pp. 100-118
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  1. 8. Beyond the History We Know: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Nisi Shawl, and Jarla Tangh Rethink Science Fiction Tradition
  2. De Witt Douglas Kilgore
  3. pp. 119-129
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  1. 9. Responses to De Witt Douglas Kilgore
  2. Nisi Shawl, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Jarla Tangh
  3. pp. 130-132
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  1. Part 3. Stories: Techno/Magic Sistahs Are Not the Sistahs from Another Planet
  2. p. 133
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  1. 10. The Book of Martha
  2. Octavia E. Butler
  3. pp. 135-150
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  1. 11. Double Consciousness
  2. Andrea Hairston
  3. pp. 151-157
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  1. 12. Dynamo Hum
  2. Nisi Shawl
  3. pp. 158-166
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  1. 13. The Ferryman
  2. Sheree R. Thomas
  3. pp. 167-173
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  1. 14. Herbal
  2. Nalo Hopkinson
  3. pp. 174-176
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  1. Part 4. Commentaries: Kindred Spirits
  2. p. 177
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  1. 15. On Octavia E. Butler
  2. Tananarive Due
  3. pp. 179-181
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  1. 16. Can a Brother Get Some Love?: Sociobiology in Images of African-American Sensuality in Contemporary Cinema: Or, Why We'd Better the Hell Claim Vin Diesl as Our Own
  2. Steven Barnes
  3. pp. 182-190
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  1. 17. A Conversation with Samuel R. Delany about Sex, Gender, Race, Writing--and Science Fiction
  2. Samuel R. Delany, Carl Freedman
  3. pp. 191-235
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  1. 18. Black "Science Faction:" An Interview with Kevin Willmott, Director and Writer of CSA, The Confederate States of America
  2. Kevin Willmott, Marleen S. Barr
  3. pp. 236-240
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  1. 19. Octavia's Healing Power: A Tribute to the Late Great Octavia E. Butler
  2. Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
  3. pp. 241-243
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  1. Afterword: The Big Bang: Or, The Inception of Scholarship about Black Women Science Fiction Writers
  2. Marleen S. Barr
  3. pp. 245-248
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  1. Response to the Afterword: Connecting Metamorphoses
  2. Ruth Salvaggio
  3. pp. 249-250
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  1. Contributors
  2. pp. 251-257
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  1. Back Cover
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