Afronauts
On Science Fiction and the Crisis of Possibility
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13015286 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (0000-0003-2500-5353, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 273-290 |
| Publication date | 2016-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2052-2614 • E-ISSN: 2052-2622 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/pli.2016.14 |
| OpenAlex | W2535700790 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 16 |
This essay investigates the critical function of science fiction (SF) tropes in SF and non-SF works by and about Africans. It begins with the assertion that works that invoke SF tropes, even if they are not properly speaking SF, can productively be read within the frame of SF. It then analyzes the ways in which writers and visual artists use speculative technological advances to explore the systematic marginalization of the African continent in the world-system. Drawing on Darko Suvin, Raymond Williams, and Fredric Jameson, it illustrates how these works use the cognitive estrangement characteristic of SF to posit a break in established systems of thought; this is, ultimately, a utopian gesture. Works discussed include Deji Bryce Olukotun’s Nigerians in Space , Sony Labou Tansi’s Life and a Half , Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Wizard of the Crow , Cristina de Middel’s The Afronauts , and Frances Bodomo’s Afronauts
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Assertion · Frame (networking · Literature · Wizard · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
“Liminal Figures of Futurity”
Reaching for the Stars
Palestine and the Aesthetics of the Future Impossible
Between Eco-Anxiety and Solastalgia
Reading Philippine Science Fiction through Science and Technology Studies
Of freedom and the problem of the future in contemporary diasporic African speculative fiction
Counter-Fitting
Introduction
Tropical Utopia, Tropical Dystopia
This body that is not ours
Globalization, Utopia, and Postcolonial Science Fiction
The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction
Metamorphoses of Science Fiction
Protocols for experiments in African science fiction
The SF of Theory
Decolonizing the Future
Magical Realism
The Cybogre Manifesto
On the Postcolony
Postcolonialism and Science Fiction
The Ships Landed Long Ago
Of Mimicry and Membership
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |