Speculative Frameworks for Liberation: Designing Afrofuturist Biology to Reclaim Legacy and Envision Futures

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Past and future of (material not just symbolic) decoloniality in curriculum

Abstract

This paper explores the possibilities of using Afrofuturism in redesigning undergraduate biology curriculum to promote cultural relevance, social implications, and transformative impact trajectories for Black undergraduate STEM students. Data from this study comes from curriculum materials developed by a coalition of professors, K–12 educators, community partners, artists, and activists, who participated in think tanks and working groups to design liberatory lessons. Leveraging Afrofuturistic themes of time, liberation, feminine identity, marginalization, science fiction, and Blackness to analyze the data, outcomes reveal that these lessons can foster cultural inclusion, engagement, and visionary possibilities for Black students. Implications for imagining (and creating) the future of STEM curriculum through frameworks that engage temporalities, utopian outcomes, and Black stories are provided.

Authors

• Michele Williams, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Isaiah M. Stewart, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Autumn Rouse, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Lucienne Petit, University of Illinois Chicago

• Terrell R Morton, University of Illinois at Chicago