submitted by aoki@augsburg.edu
An exciting course is being offered for the first time this spring, CRS120, “Black to the Future: Afrofuturism as Cultural Aesthetic.” The class will look at Afrofuturism as a tool of exposing issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality and as a celebration of Black resistance to the systems that uphold those issues. The course will consider texts in a variety of mediums including short stories, novels, music, music videos, and film, starting with W.E.B Du Bois’ “The Comet,” touch on the music of Sun Ra and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, and move to modern examples of the tradition like Rivers Solomon’s The Deep, music from Janelle Monae, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. CRS 120 fulfills the Equity, Power, and Social Justice or the Humanities GenEd requirement. The class is also cross-listed as ENL 275.