The Tip of the Iceberg: Sound Studies and the Future of Afrofuturism
Iconic developments in the artistic and intellectual ethos known as Afrofuturism are closely linked to music: Sun Ra\u2019s experimental jazz, Parliament Funkadelic\u2019s Mothership, John Akomfrah\u2019s film Last Angel of History. What else is on the soundtrack to a livable future? How do we pursue further innovation in the human sensorium without reproducing an \u201caudiovisual litany\u201d that conflates rationality with the colonial gaze and isolates Black creativity to moments of sonic disruption? andr\xe9 carrington\u2019s present research on the cultural politics of race in science fiction radio drama aims to expand the repertoire of literary adaptation studies by reintegrating critical perspectives from marginal and popular sectors of the media landscape into the advancing agendas of Afrofuturism and decolonization.\n\nandr\xe9 carrington is a scholar of race, gender, and genre in Black and American cultural production. He is currently Assistant Professor of African American literature at Drexel University. His first book, Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction (Minnesota, 2016) interrogates the cultural politics of race in the fantastic genres through studies of science fiction fanzines, comics, film and television, and other speculative fiction texts.