10.30495/jntell.2023.702874

The Impact of Afrofuturism on the Voiceand Identity in Contemporary BlackFemale Narratives

PDF
  • Zahra Hashemi1,
  • Hossan Shahabi*1,
  • Mehry Haddad Narafshan2,
  1. Dept. of English Language and Literature, Kerman Branch. Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran
  2. Department of Foreign Languages, Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran

Revised: 2023-02-09

Accepted: 2023-03-03

Published in Issue 2023-09-01

Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning (JNTELL)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Hashemi, Z., Shahabi, H., & Haddad Narafshan, M. (2023). The Impact of Afrofuturism on the Voiceand Identity in Contemporary BlackFemale Narratives. Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning (JNTELL), 2(3), 47-54. https://doi.org/10.30495/jntell.2023.702874
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

PDF views: 239

Abstract

Afrofuturism is described as a new genre of speculative fiction which converges speculative and realist modes in
order to explore amalgamation between African Diasporas, African American writing, and the modern technologies.
Contemporary Black female novelists have utilized Afrofuturism as an umbrella under which Womanism and Black
Feminism fall to address topics such as voice, identity, and race to show the quandary of the African woman and
how she has tried to overcome her plights and regain her selfhood. The aim of this study was to compare and analyze
the works of contemporary and pioneering African female authors Octavia Butler and Nnedi Okorafor who have
portrayed ground-breaking strategies in their protagonists’ attainment of power, voice, survival and embracement
of alternative identities through Afrofuturism and ultimately reclaimed the identity and voice of the Black
womanhood. This descriptive-review study was designed with a library approach, and the theoretical approach
utilized was the Feminist and anti-racist theories of Ytasha L. Womack’s Afrofuturism. Based on the review of the
two texts, the results indicated that Afrofuturism as a womanist movement in the African-American contemporary
literary scene has been more successful in empowering and giving the African women’s identity than the westernbased feminism.

Keywords

  • Afrofuturism,
  • Race,
  • Identity,
  • Voice,
  • African writers
PDF

References

  1. Allen, B. J. (1998). Black womanhood and feminist standpoints. Management communication quarterly,
  2. (4), 575-586. BLITHE, E. B. S. J., & BAUER, J. Badass Feminist Politics.
  3. Boccara, E. (2020). Female identity and race in contemporary Afrofuturist narratives:" Wild seed" by
  4. Octavia E. Butler.
  5. Burger, B. (2020). Math and magic: Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy and its challenge to the dominance
  6. of Western science in science fiction. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 37(4), 364-377.
  7. Butler, O. E. (2004). Kindred. Beacon Press.
  8. Cadwell, S. (2020). Book Review: Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor. Penguin/Random
  9. House, 2019. Foundation, 49(135), 108-110.
  10. Csicsery-Ronay Jr, I. (1996). The seven beauties of science fiction. Science Fiction Studies, 385-388.
  11. Elia, A. (2014). The languages of Afrofuturism. Lingue e linguaggi, 12, 83-96.
  12. Hashemi, Z., Shahabi, H., & Narafshan, M. H. (2022). Voice and Identity Formation in Nnedi Okorafor’s
  13. Binti trilogy: an Afrofuturistic Perspective. International Journal of Multicultural and
  14. Multireligious Understanding, 9(5), 84-89.
  15. ISWARYA, B., & Kavitha, M. Identity Crisis in Toni Morrison Novel'the Bluest Eye'. In: Print.
  16. Kim, M. (2022). Colorblind Racism and Herrenvolk Republicanism: Contesting American Democracy
  17. in Octavia Butler’s Kindred. 영어영문학, 68(3), 623-649.
  18. Hashemi, Shahabi, & Haddad Narafshan- JNTELL, Volume 2, Issue 3, Autumn 2023
  19. Lavender, I. (2011). Race in American science fiction. Indiana University Press.
  20. Mekgwe, P. (2008). Theorizing African feminism (s). African feminisms, XX, 1-2.
  21. Michael, B. (2013). Identity and Narration. The Living Handbook of Narratology, 23.
  22. Okorafor, N. (2019). Binti: The Complete Trilogy. Penguin.
  23. Reddell, T. (2013). Ethnoforgery and outsider afrofuturism. Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance
  24. Music Culture, 5(2), 88-112.
  25. Snider, L., & Swedo, S. (2004). PANDAS: current status and directions for research. Molecular
  26. psychiatry, 9(10), 900-907.
  27. Väätänen, P. (2021). Narrating Alien Encounters: Race, Identity, and Generic Change in Science Fiction.
  28. Womack, Y. L. (2013). Afrofuturism: The world of black sci-fi and fantasy culture. Chicago Review
  29. Press.
  30. Yaszek, L. (2015). Afrofuturism in American science fiction. The Cambridge companion to American
  31. science fiction, 58-69.