This panel engages with the 2026 ASA meeting’s theme of “Rupture and Remake: African Possibilities in a Shifting World” as it relates to Africanfuturism, loosely defined as speculative expression across disciplines that is unified by the foregrounding of African perspectives, strategies, and concepts, including those related to time, technology, and the fantastical, which are applicable to that which might lie ahead (Cleveland 2024). Recognition and exploration of Africanfuturism as a body of African-originated and African-centered production distinct from US-originated and US-centered Afrofuturism itself signifies a liberatory split. Some African creatives perform acts of rupture by centering their Africanfuturist work in indigenous beliefs, practices, and possibilities that sever ties with lingering and debilitating colonial structures. Others use their speculative production as a response to more recent instances of political, environmental, or cultural rupture brought about by foreign or indigenous sources. Africanfuturism may highlight major breaks in the social fabric or micro-level transgressions of everyday systems. Consisting of everything from uplifting imaginings of renewal in the aftermath of rupture to cautionary tales intended to help individuals avoid rifts in the yet to come, the production is always concerned with an African-focused future in an ever-shifting world. This panel welcomes papers from diverse fields.
Please email kcleveland@gsu.edu with a presentation title, 200-word abstract, 100-word biographical statement including institutional affiliation and author contact information by March 10, 2026.
