Contents
preface “All At One Point” Conveys the Point, Period: Or, Black Science Fiction Is Bursting Out All Over ix
Introductions: “Dark Matter” Matters
l Imaginative Encounters Hortense J. Spillers 3
l Black to the Future: Afro-Futurism 1.0 Mark Dery 6
l “On the Other Side of the Glass”: The Television Roots of Black Science Fiction Marleen S. Barr 14
Essays: The Blackness of Outer Space Fiction as Blast(off) from the Past
l Becoming Animal in Black Women’s Science Fiction Madhu Dubey 31
l “God Is Change”: Persuasion and Pragmatic Utopianism in Octavia E. Butler’s Earthseed Novels Ellen Peel 52
l Tananarive Due and Nalo Hopkinson Revisit the Reproduction of Mothering: Legacies of the Past and Strategies for the Future Alcena Madeline Davis Rogan 75
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l Close Encounters between Traditional and Nontraditional Science Fiction: Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and Gayl Jones’s Corregidora Sing the Time Travel Blues Jennifer E. Henton 100
l Beyond the History We Know: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Nisi Shawl, and Jarla Tangh Rethink Science Fiction Tradition De Witt Douglas Kilgore 119
l responses to De Witt Douglas Kilgore Bubbling Champagne Power Trip Nisi Shawl 130 “Of Course People Can Fly” Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu 131 Carla Johnson/Jarla Tangh: a Close Encounter with My Pseudonym Jarla Tangh 132
Stories: Techno/Magic Sistahs Are Not the Sistahs from Another Planet
l The Book of Martha Octavia E. Butler 135
l Double Consciousness Andrea Hairston 151
l Dynamo Hum Nisi Shawl 158
l The Ferryman Sheree R. Thomas 167
l herbal Nalo Hopkinson 174
Commentaries: Kindred Spirit
l On Octavia E. Butler Tananarive Due 179
l 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 Diesel as Our Own Steven Barnes 182
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l a Conversation with Samuel R. Delany about Sex, Gender, Race, Writing—and Science Fiction Samuel R. Delany and Carl Freedman 191
l Black “Science Faction”: An Interview with Kevin Willmott, Director and Writer of CSA, The Confederate States of America Kevin Willmott and Marleen S. Barr 236
l Octavia’s Healing Power: A Tribute to the Late Great Octavia E. Butler Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu 241
Afterword The Big Bang: Or, the Inception of Scholarship about Black Women Science Fiction Writers Marleen S. Barr 245
l response to the Afterword Connecting Metamorphoses: Italo Calvino’s Mrs. Ph(i)NKo and I, Dr. Ph(d)SalvagGIo Ruth Salvaggio 249
Notes on Contributors 251
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