Obsidian’s fall 2016 double-issue explores speculative genres and is edited by Sheree Renée Thomas and Nisi Shawl (short fiction, drama, poetry), Isiah Lavender III (essays), and Krista Franklin (art, visual media, and paraliterature). All artists ask “what if?”, explore the consequences of “if this continues,” and contemplate “if only;” however, practitioners of the speculative arts or Afrofuturism—an umbrella term for science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, fabulism, horror, and unclassifiable and interstitial creative works such as slipstream—ask the same question and respond with an answer that re-imagines whole worlds and goes beyond the known universe.
Afrofuturism and the speculative arts may transport audiences to a planet light-years away,to alternate histories and identities, or deep inside the jewel-toned caves of a far-distant past, another consciousness. Whether extrapolating science and society to imagine futuristic technology, art, and socio-political configurations, or conjuring new forms of magic, these genres imagine what might have been or what might be, opening the door to any possibility.
Full Issue
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Table of Contents
ESSAYS
And So Shaped the World | |
Sheree Renée Thomas |
Of Alien Abductions, Pocket Universes & Slave Narratives | |
Isiah Lavendar III |
Slavery & the Afrofuture in Samuel R. Delany's "Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand" | |
Dorothy Stringer |
Afrofuturism, Cyborgs & the Fate of Imperialism in Bill Campbell's "Sunshine Patriots" | |
Jonathan Harvey |
Afrofuturism 2.0 & the Black Speculative Arts Movement: Notes on a Manifesto | |
Reynaldo Anderson |
Speculative Sankofarration: Haunting Black Women in Contemporary Horror Fiction | |
Kinitra D. Brooks, Alexis McGee, Stephanie Schoellman |
Scratching at the Dark: A Visual Essay on EthnoGothic | |
John Jennings |
POETRY
Aphasia & Other States of Reticence | |
Johnette Marie Ellis |
Leader names all ionized matter after himself | |
Metta Sáma |
Silence of Family Trees | |
Harry Reed |
DiVida travels First Class | |
Monica A. Hand |
DiVida contemplates the hard problem | |
Monica A. Hand |
their pasts dropped at my feet | |
Metta Sáma |
for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life | |
Metta Sáma |
He himself was not the light; He came only as witness to the light | |
Metta Sáma |
Classification of Shifting, Bodies | |
Alana Benoit |
The Bean Between the E & the I | |
LaShawn M. Wanak |
Mable & Othello | |
Mama Whodun |
A Reading of Adire Cloth | |
Jacqueline Johnson |
Land Bound (a Zuihitsu) | |
Jacqueline Johnson |
Red Giant Heartthrob | |
Bianca Spriggs |
DRAMA/PERFORMANCE
Daffodils | |
Monica A. Hand |
Otherwise Oblivion: A Tale of the New Old Black Resistance from the Futuretime | |
Derek Lee McPhatter |
The Wall | |
M. Asli Dukan |
FICTION
His Hollow | |
Sofia Samatar |
Let Your Light Shine Before Men | |
Christopher Caldwell |
Eyes of Xhosa | |
Iyanna L. Jones |
Mahogany Soul | |
Sandra Jackson-Opoku |
Black Magic | |
Cairo Amani |
The Call of Mother Earth | |
Arthur Flowers |
Still Life with Hammers, a Broom & a Brick Stacker | |
Tochi Onyebuchi |
Ten Thousand Hours | |
Alex Jennings |
Portrait of a Young Zombie in Crisis | |
Walidah Imarisha |
Trapped Whispers (from Cell Therapy) | |
Regina N. Bradley, John Jennings |
Seven Possible Futures for the Black Feminist Artist | |
Alexis Pauline Gumbs |
MULTIMEDIA
Black Object / White Smoke | |
Alexandria Eregbu |
Untitled #3 | |
Jermaine Harmon |
Reflection (After the Deluge) | |
Ivan Forde |
Encounter | |
Ivan Forde |
Doom | |
Stacey Robinson |
We Got Next | |
Stacey Robinson |
Energy & Intention Reverberator with Grounding Circle | |
Rhonda Wheatley |
Focus / Meditation Piece | |
Rhon Wheatley |
Narcissus: My Partner & Myself | |
Lyric Prince |
The Astronaut: The American Dream | |
Lyric Prince |
Masquerades Fortune aka masquerade. Cotton. Diana. | |
Soraya Jean-Louis McElroy |
hot in the valley | |
Kimberly M. Becoat |
Time Travel Device: Super Wax's Jazz Pyramid Raising Device | |
Christina Springer |
What Lies Beneath | |
J. Johari Palacio |
ISSN: 0888-4412