The Wakandan Civitas and its Panthering Futurity

Jorge Serrano Announcement
Location
District of Columbia, United States
Subject Fields
African History / Studies, Black History / Studies, Popular Culture Studies, Race Studies, Women's & Gender History / Studies

Black Panther projects Afrotopic advancement and this panel engages Black civilization receptions both in literary form (reading film(s) as text as well as the graphic novel genre) in order to create dialogue about various aspects of African and African diasporic representation. This panel reviews and welcomes both ideal and/or dystopic civilizational interpretives.  Papers should venture into various aspects seen on screen as text and that reveal transconnectivity of a Black past particularly locating eutopic notions that counter or embellish traditionalized gazes. We encourage submission that read notions of race, class, gender, intelligence, civilization tendencies, colonialisms, etc. and that involve theoretical and literary inquiry within and intersecting the Africana Studies realm.  Women warriors, youth scientism, vibrania/technological signifiers, kings, queens, interethnic rivalries, diasporic divides, nationalism, separatism, classism, and any other “isms” and are encouraged.  The various themes relating to narrative, anti-hero heroism, character symbolism, epistemic rupture, consciousness raising, global impact, empire, contradiction, etc. are also highly sought. 

This panel employs the recent Black Panther twinkling to reflect on implications of African visibility and guises.  We are considering the Panthering effect given present-day social challenges and situate philosophies on worldly human and civilizational schema, i.e. an African past and present embodied via an inextricable and ameliorative futurity. The panel welcomes film and graphic novel versions, e.g. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Ta Nehisi Coates and also Ryan Coogler’s direction.  What of the symbolism we see of the Africa trope and/or diasporic and/or the nonblack othering?

Contact Information

Jorge Serrano

Contact Email
serrano@udel.edu