Surveying the Black Futurist Movement

Surveying the Black Futurist Movement is
positioned at the intersection of various
African American traditions including music,
performance, poetry, and filmmaking. The course
will
vacillate between sound and cinema as we
investigate the language and function of
abstraction.
Derived from an expanded meditation on
Afrofuturism, conceptual art, and various
aesthetic
methods, this class will interrogate the radical
and imaginative innovations of Black artists. The
ideas
explored by these auteurs, writers, and musicians
rely on looking beyond traditional interpretations
of time and space, fact and fiction, history and
myth. Our listening will follow the moods of Alice
Coltrane, Erykah Badu and Sun Ra. Our screenings
will analyze the intentions of Bill Gunn, George
Clinton, and Rickey Laurentiis. We will discuss a
variety of questions, debate our own theories, and
engage
with artists, filmmakers, and critics.