Episode · Stuff You Should Know · 2023-06-22
Books mentioned on How Afrofuturism Works
Black sci-fi writers were shut out of their genre in the 20th century so they created their own vision of the future. That sentiment spread to music and film and today it’s so engrained in pop culture it doesn't need its own label.
Josh Clark discussed Black No More by George Schuyler. Chuck Bryant discussed Kindred by Octavia Butler. Also mentioned: Blake; or, The Huts of America by Martin R. Delany, Light Ahead for the Negro by Edward Austin Johnson, and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Blake; or, The Huts of America
Discussed“but uh there was a guy in 1857 uh named Martin Delaney who was a a kind of a jack of all trades he was a doctor and a journalist and an author and abolitionist uh he wrote a book a novel called Blake or the Huts of America uh which was as a lot of these are alternate histories”
Where to get it
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Light Ahead for the Negro
Discussed“but there was a guy named Edward Johnson who wrote um light ahead for the Negro uh in 1901 and he imagined a black man who uh was transported to a socialist version of the United States in 2006 where things were much much better”
Where to get it
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Black No More
Discussed“and he wrote that the book Black no more where you could visit a machine pay $50 and after three a three-day process be turned from black to white and it completely upends society and civilization both in the white community and the black community”
Where to get it
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Kindred
Discussed“uh and there's a TV show last year or the year before from her book Kindred yeah from 1979 which I wasn't I didn't see it”
Where to get it
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Parable of the Talents
Recommended“she also had um a series called the xenogenesis series from the 80s parable of the SE was the beginning of a a series that she wrote in I think it came out in 1993 and that was the one that got everybody's attention”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing The Memory Librarian
“and then like you said Janelle Monae she's the poster child of Afro futurism right now with her concept album dirty computer and a book set in the same world memory librarian”
Passing The Memory Librarian
“Janelle Monae she's the poster child of Afro futurism right now with her concept album dirty computer and a book set in the same world memory librarian”