Afrofuturism is a literary and cultural
aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction,
historical fiction,
fantasy,
Afrocentricity, and
magic realism with non-Western
cosmologies in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of
people of color, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past. First coined by
Mark Dery in 1993, and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by scholar
Alondra Nelson, Afrofuturism addresses themes and concerns of the
African Diaspora through a
technoculture and
science fiction lens, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afrodiasporic experiences. Seminal Afrofuturistic works include the novels of
Samuel R. Delany and
Octavia Butler; the canvases of
Jean-Michel Basquiat and the photography of
Renée Cox; and the explicitly extraterrestrial
mythoi of
Parliament-Funkadelic, the
Jonzun Crew,
Warp 9,
Deltron 3030, and
Sun Ra.