Ep. 81 | Afrofuturism [00:00:09] Kendra Hello, I'm Kendra Winchester, here with Sachi Argabright. And this is Reading Women, a podcast inviting you to reclaim half the bookshelf by discussing books written by or about women. And this is episode 81, where we're talking about books around this month's theme, which is Afrofuturism. [00:00:24] Sachi You can find a complete transcript and a list of all the books mentioned today linked in our show notes. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. [00:00:33] Kendra We also have with us one of our contributors, Bezi. Welcome, Bezi, to the podcast. [00:00:38] Bezi Hi. I'm so happy to be here. [00:00:42] Kendra Yeah, you were on the podcast—was it last year? [00:00:45] Bezi Yes. Yes, it was technically last calendar year, which feels weird to say because it was only a few months ago. [00:00:52] Kendra So this is your second episode since you've been a contributor. So I am very excited. When we went with this challenge prompt for the Reading Women Challenge, we were like, oh, that would be great theme as well. And so it just seemed like the perfect thing to have you back on for. [00:01:07] Bezi Yes, I'm really happy to be here. I've been knee-deep in Afrofuturism for the past two years for my own graduate study. And so I'm really excited to come back on the podcast and talk about this topic that I'm most passionate about. [00:01:23] Kendra I'm very excited to learn. We've been reading all of the things and talking about so many amazing books. But before we jump into our theme, we have some news. [00:01:32] Bezi So BINTI, which I'm going to talk about in today's podcast episode, by Nnedi Okorafor is in development as an adaptation on Hulu, which is a really cool thing to hear. As well as WILD SEED, which is by Octavia Butler, who is another Afrofuturist author that we're going to talk about later in the episode and in the next episode. Her novel, WILD SEED is also in development by Nnedi Okorafor who is an Africanfuturist writer, and that is in development at HBO. So both Hulu and HBO are in the process of developing Afrofuturist and Africanfuturist series. [00:02:11] Kendra I'm so excited. [00:02:12] Sachi Me too! [00:02:13] Kendra You have extended series. That gives them more space to sprawl out and develop the story. [00:02:18] Sachi I don't have Hulu. But I'll have to try to get my hands on BINTI. Maybe I'll have to get a free trial or something of Hulu so I can watch it. I do have HBO so really excited about WILD SEED, especially since I really love Octavia Butler. [00:02:31] Bezi Yeah, I'm actually in the opposite situation where I have Hulu, but not HBO. I've held out on HBO for a while, but this might be the one that finally gets me to try and get an account. [00:02:43] Sachi Yeah. [00:02:44] Kendra Now, I guess it's time to jump into Afrofuturism. And so I think it would be helpful to talk a little bit about what Afrofuturism is, and that way that will give everyone a a better idea of what kind of books we are going to be talking about today? [00:02:57] Bezi Definitely. So Afrofuturism is sort of a basic description. It imagines things like aliens and post-apocalyptic worlds in order to center Black people who have been historically dehumanized in social conditions of the present and sort of imagine them in these centered positions in the future. It can be fantastic, but it isn't necessarily fantasy, which we'll talk about in the next episode—some of the distinguishing aspects of Black fantasy and Afrofuturism and also these definitions that I'm putting forward aren't standardized. And they're really complex. They vary depending on which scholar you talk to, depending on which author and novelist you talk to. The genre is really evolving and changing and is adapted to each author and each time that the novel and the work is being created in. [00:03:47] Bezi We can talk about some of the complexities, but I do want to put forward that Afrofuturism is really complex. And anything that we continue to talk about in the episode is some ways to gesture to some of the knowledge and research that's happened so far, but doesn't preclude the other research that continues to go forward. Afrofuturism is relevant to today's books that we're gonna talk about today because it looks at what could have been as a way to reimagine what will be, which is like DREAD NATION, which Sachi will talk about. But it can also look at what will be in a more straightforward sci-fi, futuristic sense. [00:04:25] Kendra So like BINTI, in Africanfuturism, is looking forward to what could be, in that sense. [00:04:31] Bezi Exactly. Yes. Looking at the ways in which we imagine the future and using some of the ideas and metaphors of aliens and post-apocalyptic worlds and space travel and time travel. [00:04:43] Kendra Which sounds like all of the best things really. [00:04:45] Sachi Oh yeah. [00:04:47] Bezi Yes, absolutely. I fully love fantasy and sci-fi and all things technological and magical. And the ways that we really understand that technology and magic are blurred at that level because we can't imagine some of the technology that is put forward in sci-fi. It might as well be magic. [00:05:05] Kendra That's true. That's one of the things I've always loved about science fiction and fantasy is that it's just sort of like viewing the world from a different perspective, the difference between the two in a lot of ways. I had a friend that would always argue with me about how he didn't like fantasy. He only wanted science fiction because it was is explained by science. And I'm like, LOL. [00:05:28] Sachi Okay... [00:05:29] Bezi I don't have time for people like that. I think there are very real arguments about fantasy, which we'll talk about next episode. So I don't want to get ahead of myself. But fantasy sometimes can be a very conservative genre. It uses a lot of ideas and traditions of the past and these sort of alternate worlds. But I think that once you start talking about technology that's so insane and so futuristic and so cool . but once you start talking at that level, it might as well be magic to the average reader and to the average viewer in the 21st century. So, yeah, I think there's a way in which these genres really work together and play together and do awesome things when you don't become . when you're not so committed to drawing lines between them. [00:06:18] Kendra Well, it sounds like we will have a lot of great things to talk about in this episode and next episode. But why don't we just jump into our book picks for today? And Bezi, you have the first one. [00:06:29] Bezi Yes. So I'm going to talk about today BINTI by Nnedi Okorafor. And it is one of my favorite series and one of the first series I read that was in the category of Black fantasy and science fiction. So a short sort of plot summary. Binti is the title character, and she's a Himba girl from Namibia on Earth. And she leaves her family to go to college off planet at Oomza University. She makes friends with other people in the transport ship, many of whom are Khoush, which is another human ethnic group. But the trip gets hijacked by an alien attack, which had been previously at war with the humans, the human ethnic group that was on the ship. And through technology and magic, Binti discovers the means for reconciliation and for a new understanding of her own identity, even in this now hostile space. [00:07:22] Bezi I do want to start off on top of that plot summary by saying, as Kendra mentioned, that part of this discussion of Afrofuturism is the distinction that Nnedi Okorafor has sort of led the discussion for: that there is a genre called Africanfuturism, which shares many of the same concerns with Afrofuturism in that it's thinking about visions of the future and science fiction advancements in technology. But Africanfuturism centers Africa and specificities of African cultures and peoples outside of tropes of the West and decentering tropes of the West. So, for example, Binti's Himba tribe is based on the Himba tribe in Namibia, a real African tribe, and thinks about the ways in which that specific culture and the legacies of that specific culture impact her story and impact Binti's character, characterization, and character growth. [00:08:19] Kendra And I find it really fascinating because I didn't know that there was a different scene Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism until you mentioned it.