Revising the Future: Exploring Ethnofuturism
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While the desire for a postracial, colorblind society remains an emotional investment, the present reality of race and racist attitudes ingrained in the structure of American culture suggest that any such imagined future is structured based on the standards of whiteness. Representations of this future postracial society tend most often to manifest within speculative, magical realist, science fiction, and other fantastic cultural productions. These fantastic genres, whether set in an alternate present (or past) or some imagined future, give the greatest leeway for writers to navigate concepts of a society-in-the-making. It is important to note, however, that throughout their history, science fiction and futurist narratives have largely been the creation of white writers, and as such have perpetuated dominant notions of whiteness as superior through imaginary postrace worlds that negate racial identities and subsequently rely on the assumption of white as default. Depictions of colorblind worlds suggest the possibility that we can move past racial issues, and in fact many present that possibility as close-at-hand. The majority of these representations, as the creations of white authors and filmmakers, suggest that the concept of a postracial society has been largely subsumed by white society. However, another way of conceiving alternative concepts of race and identity might be found in those works portraying a future in which racial identity is not placed under erasure but instead becomes a ground for discussion of issues at the core of United States history and culture. Though it is not possible to draw a generalized conclusion about the entirety of an ethnofuturist authorship that encompasses a broad cross-section of experiences, backgrounds, interests, and personalities, larger patterns begin to emerge. Often, writers will engage current race issues in presenting speculations on the future, addressing problems directly instead of sidestepping into a whitewashed postracial vision. This dissertation looks at how ethnofuturist narratives navigate the cultural thrust of positive representation to counteract racist stereotyping in a multifaceted dialectical space, where an aesthetic of cultural intersection and self-contained ethnic agency starts to take shape, liberated from the perspective of a Eurocentric imperative and redefining the concept of postrace.
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Introduction -- Genre as a dialect -- Folklore and myth -- Framing super-bodies
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Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)