New-Wave TrajectoryClick to order via AmazonHardcover: 304 pagesPublisher: Ohio State University Press; 2 edition (May 8, 2008)Language: EnglishISBN-10: 0814210783Afro-Future Females: Black Writers Chart Science Fiction's NewestNew-Wave Trajectory, edited by Marleen S. Barr, is the firstcombined science fiction critical anthology and short storycollection to focus upon black women via written and visual texts.The volume creates a dialogue with existing theories of Afro-Futurism in order to generate fresh ideas about how to apply race toscience fiction studies in terms of gender. The contributors,including Hortense Spillers, Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler,and Steven Barnes, formulate a woman-centered Afro-Futurism byrepositioning previously excluded fiction to redefine sciencefiction as a broader fantastic endeavor. They articulate a platformfor scholars to mount a vigorous argument in favor of redefiningscience fiction to encompass varieties of fantastic writing and,therefore, to include a range of black women's writing that wouldotherwise be excluded. Afro-Future Females builds upon Barr'sprevious work in black science fiction and fills a gap in theliterature. It is the first critical anthology to addressthe "blackness" of outer space fiction in terms of feminism,emphasizing that it is necessary to revise the very nature of agenre that has been constructed in such a way as to exclude its newblack participants. Black science fiction writers alter genreconventions to change how we read and define science fiction itself.The work's main point: black science fiction is the most excitingliterature of the nascent twenty-first century.About the Editor: Marleen S. Barris a science fiction pioneer who broke new ground in feministscience fiction criticism with her book Alien to Femininity:Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory. She won the Science FictionResearch Association Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Achievement inscience fiction criticism.
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