Jenna Hanchey
Scholar | Writer | Artist
imagining and constellating better futures
All photography copyright Jenna Hanchey unless otherwise noted; all rights reserved.
I’m continually searching for radical futures, reflecting over the racial and colonial legacies of our pasts, and laboring to enact justice in the present. My academic work critically examines African developmental futures. My creative work reflects over grief, gender, and land. Both aim to open imaginative possibilities for decolonization.
I hail from Southwest Michigan and now live in Phoenix, where I work as Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Critical/Cultural Studies in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. I’m a British Science Fiction Association Award-shortlisted author, narrator for the Ignyte, British Science Fiction Association, and British Fantasy Award-nominated podcast Simultaneous Times as well as Strange Horizons, and Audio Editor at Orion’s Belt.
A graduate student once called me a “badass fairy.” I attempt to live up to the title.
Research & Public Essays
The Center Cannot Hold
My first book, The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO, is the winner of the 2024 Outstanding Monograph Award from the Organizational Communication division of the National Communication Association. It examines how decolonial possibility emerges from the collapse of normative aid operations and subjectivities. Listen to an interview about the book, download the introduction, or read a forum of reviews in Quarterly Journal of Speech.
Decolonial Dreamwork
My second book, Decolonial Dreamwork: Africanfuturism and Imagination Beyond Development examines how African speculative fiction imagines continental futures that challenge, reinvent, and eschew Western logics of development, and encourages everyone to imagine in solidarity with African creators. I have been awarded a Waterhouse Family Institute Grant, NEH Summer Stipend and ASU Humanities Institute Seed Grant for this work, and it is under contract with The Ohio State University Press for their New Suns series. Find a sneak peek here in ASAP Journal: “Liquid Resistance.”
Reviews & Essays
I review for LA Review of Books and Ancillary Review of Books, and have published essays in Strange Horizons. For a recent review, see “Sitting With the Grief” a review of Eugen Bacon’s edited collection Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction.
Fiction & Poetry
Among the Beginnings Scattered Across the Kitchen Floor
If There’s Anyone Left, October 2025
Ten Reasons You Should Get Lasik Before the Apocalypse
Small Wonders, December 2024
And well as stories forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Cast of Wonders, and more…
Podcast & Audio Narration
Just Keep Writing
I’m part of the amazing cohost team at Just Keep Writing! Learn about my work in “Spotlight on Jenna Hanchey,” find out about my writing inspirations in “Canon Events: Creative Research with Jenna” or explore the podcast to find more conversations!
Griots & Galaxies
I’m also cohost of Griots & Galaxies, a podcast celebrating African speculative fiction. Check out the first episode here, or wherever you find your podcasts.
Audiobook & Story Narration
I narrate for podcasts such as Simultaneous Times, Strange Horizons, and the Escape Artists Podcasts, and I’m Audio Editor at Orion’s Belt. Two stories I’ve narrated have been nominated for the BSFA Award for Best Audio Fiction this year — Renan Bernardo’s “Plucking Flowers from My Garden of Poison” and Tara Campbell’s “Just Let Me Help”! Listen to them, or hear me read from my own fiction at events like Story Hour and Space Cowboy Books’ Flash Science Fiction Night.
Teaching & Workshops
Public Workshops and Panels
I’ve organized, facilitated, and participated in a variety of public workshops and panels on writing, Africanfuturism, and speculative fiction. Find a number past events here, and see what’s upcoming.
Courses
I teach graduate and undergraduate courses focused on decolonial rhetoric, critical/cultural studies, and writing speculative fiction for social justice.
Artwork
My artwork is multimedia and transdisciplinary, published in outlets from zines to academic journals to speculative fiction magazines. I engage with collage, watercolor, acrylics, and photography to explore grief, imagine possibilities, center intimacies, and engender hope.
For Further Information
See my academic profile at ASU.
All of the photography on this website is my own (unless otherwise noted), copyright Jenna Hanchey, all rights reserved.
Jenna Hanchey 
