Last week, my latest essay on Africanfuturism came out in Strange Horizons magazine, “Africanfuturism Beyond the Future.” In it, I examine work from Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, and Tade Thompson for the way it configures time in nonlinear ways that necessarily break Western ideas of development and saviorism. I absolutely love all three of these authors, so I hope that you’ll read the essay (although I must caution, there are spoilers…) and then check out their work!
This essay came out right on time for the beginning of the academic year here at ASU, and coincides well with a course I’m teaching: Writing Speculative Fiction for Social Justice. I’ve linked the syllabus here — I was shocked to find after posting it on bluesky that it’s been downloaded over 300 times! It’s a mini doctoral-level course helping PhD students use their research expertise to write speculative fiction stories that encourage us to start creating better futures now. I hope it’s useful to you as well =)
Jenna Hanchey 