Afro-Futurisum: Girls of Color Reenvisioning "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic in which authors create speculative texts that center Black characters in an effort to reclaim and recover the past, counter negative and elevate positive realities that exist in the present, and create new possibilities for the future. Imarisha (2015) noted “whenever we try to envision a world without war, without violence, without prisons, without capitalism, we are engaging in speculative fiction” (p. 3). Envisioning an oppression-less world requires innovative ideas and visionary possibilities. The presenters have used Afrofuturism to work alongside girls of color (GOC). Exploring girls’ of color Afrofuturistic narratives, this symposium seeks to inform educators of pedagogical practices from the worlds that GOC re-envision for themselves.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 3: Languages, Literacies, and Representations

Chair

• Erica B. Edwards, Wayne State University

Papers

• Building on Traditions of Girl of Color Knowing to Imagine and Build Futures - Grace D. Player, University of Connecticut - Storrs; Oluwaseun Animashaun, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Critical Media Literacy as Afro-Futurist Pedagogical Method - Sherell A. McArthur, University of Georgia - Athens

• Luminescent Threads and Kindred Dreams: Black Girls Using Afro-Futurism to Build a Womanist Imaginative - Stephanie R Toliver, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Engendering #BlackGirlJoy: A Pedagogical Imperative for Mediating Educational Toxins and Restoring Black Female Learners' Well-Being - Monique Lane, Saint Mary's College of California

Discussant

• Monique Lane, Saint Mary's College of California