March 23, 2004
Conference to Examine Fiction by Black Authors
EVANSTON, Ill.
--- Author Sheree R. Thomas put an end to the myth that African
Americans don’t write science fiction four years
ago when her 427-page anthology titled “Dark Matter: A Century
of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora” was published.
Thomas will
be among the panelists Friday, April 16, at “The
Politics of the Paraliterary: A Symposium of Afro Diasporic Speculative
Fiction and Theory” at Northwestern University.
The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will explore
the contributions of black writers from around the world to the
genres of science fiction, horror, fantasy, futurism and magical
realism. It will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. in Room 107 of Harris
Hall, 1881 Sheridan Road, Evanston.
The event follows by a day the April 15 free, public lecture
by prominent African American science fiction writer Samuel R.
Delany. That event will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Abbott Auditorium,
Pancoe-Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Life Sciences Pavilion,
2200 Campus Drive.
The speculative
literature conference also will include panelists Kodwo Eshun,
author of “More Brilliant than the Sun,” a
treatise on futurism in black popular music; Yale University assistant
professor Alondra Nelson, co-editor of “Technicolor: Race,
Technology and Everyday Life” and founder and moderator of
an Internet discussion group called AfroFuturism; and Village Voice
staff writer Greg Tate, author of “Flyboy in the Buttermilk” and “Midnight
Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience.”
Symposium participants will discuss recent artistic and academic
developments concerned with images of the future and with questions
of race and technology as envisioned by black authors, including
Delany, Steven Barnes, Octavia Butler, Tananarive Due, Jewelle
Gomez, Nalo Hopkinson, Brandon Massey and Walter Mosley.
For further information, contact the English department at (847)
491-7294. |