BOOK NEWS: The evolution of Black speculative fiction and philosophy

Afrofuturism and World Order 

By Reynaldo Anderson 

Ohio State UP, 2025

ISBN: 978-0-8142-5955-9

https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215944.html

In Afrofuturism and World Order, Reynaldo Anderson delves into the evolution of Black speculative thought and Afrofuturism from the early twentieth century to the present day. By locating Afrofuturism within an African geography of reason, he situates the past, present, and future of people of African descent at the intersection of speculative philosophy, science fiction, futurology, artificial intelligence, climate change, and geopolitics. Historically, Afrofuturism theorized futures for Black Americans through merging their lived experiences with science fiction, technology, music, and art. 

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

Drawing from adaptations in Black culture and speculative thought during the Cold War, Anderson addresses the shifting focus of the genre from American to transnational, as well as the implications of modern existential threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. By tracing the Black speculative tradition from its overlaps with Africana esotericism and certain African diaspora regions, to its intersections with astroculture and modernism, to the works of Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Octavia Butler, to the aesthetic politics of the Black Speculative Arts movement, and beyond, Anderson illuminates how Afrofuturism participates in an increasingly multipolar world.

“Anderson situates Afrofuturism within the long history of African philosophy, going beyond traditional literary studies to offer new ways to consider questions of justice, equality, and liberation. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the intellectual power and political depth of the Black speculative imagination.” —Alex Zamalin, author of Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism

“Anderson locates the limitations of modernism as a European ideology and then uses established principles of Africology to propose new approaches to both critical and creative analysis. Afrofuturism and World Order is essential reading for Black and African studies scholars and will become a bedrock text for graduate instruction.” —Walter D. Greason, Dewitt Wallace Professor of History, Macalester College

Reynaldo Anderson is associate professor of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University and coeditor of, among others, Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness, The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art + Design, and Cosmic Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent. He is also the editor of The Shape of Things to Come: Africology and the Rise of Afrofuturist Studies.