#BSADArchive
Quotable Moments!
Advice for Aspiring writers
“Biggest, important thing: begin it and end it. I used to consider myself Queen of the Worst Drafts Ever. Sometimes I would literally write a story where I didn’t even give the characters names because I just wanted to get the story done. […] Get it out, get it out—and then go back and make sense out of how to fix the rest.”--Linda Addison, writer
On Horror...
“When I see actual violence, it sickens me; it repulses me. There’s such a difference between the construction of imagined horror as opposed to real horror. ”--John Jennings, Ph.D., artist
“For Americans, horror films have never really died down; they’ve been a fairly consistent presence. What’s different now is that horror has become such a presence on television. […] The fact that we have the American Horror Story series means that we are at a moment of crisis […] although I swear the even numbers seasons are awful; the odd number seasons are great. It’s essentially telling a narrative of American; it’s looking at various themes each season. There are two things at play: the Gothic tends to erupt at moments of profound culture change […] and during moments of profound ideological change when you have these shifts that suggest we’re becoming more enlightened, more progressive. What the Gothic does is allow us to articulate those anxieties that, no, you’re not. There’re still some things you have to work out.”--Maisha Wester, author of African American Gothic: Screams from Shadowed Places
Thoughts Regarding ComiX with an "X"
“I’m very much about the independent, underground comix. I think that’s where a lot of the experimental comix are. [Mainstream] can’t really change that much because it’s a brand. […] If it’s shifting, it’s always going to go back to the default.”--John Jennings, Ph.d., artist
“I do like the fantastic nature of comics, but I also like the sort of moral message, especially the superhero ones. I think there’s an element of wish fulfillment in the sense that you can have these figures that are working in a purely pro-social manner.”--Julian Chambliss,Ph.D., professor of history
Impressions on the Symposium
“I went to one [panel] yesterday on Sun Ra, and I was literally done. I was done, I was full. I was writing poetry, I was writing things I needed to go look up. It is amazing to be able to sit in on these panels and listen to people who have these studies. […] I find it so amazing that people have such a depth of knowledge here.”--Linda Addison, writer
“The cybertrap is probably the biggest one because it’s taking real life place but displacing it into the future. I really want to work more with that. I look forward to working more with the scholars here to create that world […] and see how I could put that into a commercial space. Could that be the next Forever21 look? […] How can I create something that becomes a style and become a thought influence? I feel fashion is a reflection of your thought. […] Dressing is one of the most interesting forms of expression.”--Alex Hutchiwood, fashion designer
“Being in a state like Mississippi [where Freedom Summer began] and talking about Afrofuturism has incredible significance because of the history. […] I was looking for a space of healing around coming to Mississippi. It’s interesting because there was a mild anxiety about coming to the state because of the reasons which lead so many people including my ancestors to leave. So when you’re being in the physical space, there’s an internal resolution that one has to make around how you feel about that and embracing the present at the same time. I am so glad the conference was here in Mississippi. I think this was/is a fantastic affair.” --Ytasha Womack, author of Afrofuturism
“My favorite parts of the conference have been the organic moments—when people are just chatting, exchanging information, the comradery.”-- Susana Morris, Ph.D., author
“I hope there will be more conversation about it, talking about Afrofuturism explicitly connected to feminism. […] I am particularly interested in black feminism having a space in Afrofuturistic conversations both in terms of the art, the literature, and the criticism as well.” --Susana Morris, Ph.D., author
“It’s amazing to hear what people outside of academia are thinking about, and how the ethos of Afrofuturism is being used in activist work and to charge up conversations about institutional politics, anti-blackness, things like this.”--Tiffany Barber, Ph.D. candidate focusing on Black women artists
On AfroFuturism
“Essentially it’s [Afrofuturism] the recreation of human activity to repair the damage done by Eurocentrism. The immediate success is the healing of the participants. We all struggle in our own spaces […] just having the event is tremendously cathartic. Beyond that, the actual intellectual development and maturity of the concepts, this event does more to generate the sense of what Afrofuturism is, what are its possibilities than any other event in the country.”--Walter Greason, Ph.D., professor of economic history
“See I don’t define it. […] It’s realizing that African and African decedent people are a part of future of the world as much as any other culture or racial group. I think a lot of Afrofuturism is about trying to validate one’s humanity, which I have issues with because I know I’m human. So it becomes to me how do we dismantle the assumptions around race because it happens across the board—black, white, red, yellow. […] A lot of the wars that are fought are fought over that idea of the limited space we have on this world and how we’re all going to basically make it work together. If we can get to that truly holistic space where we understand that we are all in this together regardless of the constructs of race, we’re going to be okay. I think Afrofuturism is just one of the ways in which we dialogue about that future.”--Kevin Sipp, artist
On the Ethno-Gothic
“We felt that Afrofuturism as a space just was not really big enough to deal with all the nuances of black speculative arts because people were ‘oh, if there’s a magician and he’s black then its Afrofuturism’. But there are tropes connected to different sub-genres that actually function differently.”--John Jennings, Ph.d., artist
Reflections of Art, Work, and (Community) Impact
“My work is always in a state of flux. […] My work is always dealing with reconciling black pasts, acknowledging the black present, and speculating and thinking about the black future.”--Stacey Robinson, Ph.D., artist
“Black slave religion is the roots of Afrofuturism. […] And by black slave religion, I’m referring to the religion that was practiced by the black slaves. When the slaves were brought to America, they adopted Christianity, they also maintained the African customs, African worldview, African cosmology, African worship style. And that’s where you get this unique blend of Christianity.”-- Andrew Rollins, Pastor
“There’s a great deal more happening then when I was thinking about doing Dark Matter. We were still having conversations about whether or not black people even read science fiction and if there were more than two people writing in the field. […] Now people are doing stuff. They’re not just reading the fiction, they’re writing their own work, they’re doing comic books, they’re doing short films, they’re doing fashion—[…] it feels like a new world developing. It’s been there all along, but [here] there’s community.”--Shree Renée Thomas, author of the Dark Matter anthologies
“Jackson State is kind of the originator of Planet Deep South and partnered with Astroblackness to pull it off. […] We’re going to continue the conversations in our classrooms, in our program activities here at COFO, and continue to spread the knowledge amongst our students and our community. It’s a concept that resonates with both students and community, faculty and staff; it’s interdisciplinary, that’s what we’re all about.”--Rico Chapman, Ph.D., director of Hamer Institute at COFO
“It’s really about the community, and it’s about what happens after this conference. It’s about reaching out to everyone you meet here and bringing them into the projects and collaborating with them to build that energy forward.”--Tobias c van Veen, DJ and post-doctoral fellow
Special Thank You to Our Contributing Participants:
Linda Addison (http://www.cith.org/linda/)
Tiffany Barber
Julian Chambliss
Rico Chapman