• After the End Times: Postcrisis African Science Fiction

    Author(s):
    Matthew Omelsky (see profile)
    Date:
    2014
    Group(s):
    LLC African since 1990, TC Postcolonial Studies
    Subject(s):
    Speculative fiction, Motion pictures, African, Science fiction
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    African cinema, Anthropocene, Posthumanism
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/t2fs-sx20
    Abstract:
    We live in a moment of “apocalyptic time,” the “time of the end of time.” Ours is a moment of global ecological crisis, of the ever-impending collapse of capital. That we live on the brink is too clear. What is not, however, is our ability to imagine the moment after this dual crisis. In recent years, African artists have begun to articulate this “moment after,” ushering in a new paradigm in African literature and film that speculates upon postcrisis African futures. Writers and filmmakers such as Nigeria’s Efe Okogu and Kenya’s Wanuri Kahiu have imagined future African topographies—spaces that have felt the fullest effects of climate change, nuclear radiation, and the imbalances of global capitalism. Biopolitics, sovereignty, and the human have all been reconfigured in these African science fictions. Okogu and Kahiu’s futurist aesthetics are specters that loom over our present, calling for a radically reimagined politics of the now.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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