Week Twelve: Afro-futurism and Diverse Position Science Fiction

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Steven Barnes, Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia Butler, Tananarive Due, 2003
    
  Imagining a future relies on understanding and making use of one's placement in the present. Although there have always been individual authors who picked away at the edges of the genre, or even sometimes at its center, from marginalized positions of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or residency in the third world, our ideas of what constitutes tomorrow have often been based on non-inclusive and colonialist assumptions. Over the last two decades the readership and the authorship of science fiction has become more diverse. This week we inquire into the effects of that increased inclusion. Has science fiction changed as it has become more diverse? Have the assumptions that have governed the creation of science fiction conventions changed as well? Have the conventions or tropes of science fiction shifted to accommodate a more diverse audience?

Reading Assignment: This week I am asking everyone to read "Bloodchild," a short story by Octavia Butler. You will find it on the Activity Page for this Week. After you read the story I am asking you to answer the following four questions on your blog.  Please give a substantial answer to each question, that is a paragraph or so. Here are the four questions:

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?
2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss what elements of the story with which you were able to connect?
3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you choose; what changes would you make?
4. Are there elements of this work that you would consider afto-futurist?


Here is a link to N.K. Jemison doing a 2 hour workshop on how to write science fiction with an emphasis on socially conscious worldbuilding.

Here is the link to the week's Activity Page.

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