Afrofuturism
Meet the Curatorial Council
Afrofuturism—Carnegie Hall’s next citywide festival in February–March 2022—explores an ever-expansive aesthetic and practice where music, visual arts, science fiction, and technology intersect to imagine alternate realities and a liberated future viewed through the lens of Black cultures. Meet the five leading Afrofuturism experts brought together to share their passion and knowledge in creating this visionary festival.
Reynaldo Anderson
Reynaldo Anderson is an associate professor of Africology and African American studies at Temple University; executive director and co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement; and co-editor of the books Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness and The Black Speculative Arts Movement: Black Futurity, Art+Design.
King James Britt
King James Britt is a Pew Fellowship recipient, electronic music producer, composer, and performer. He is an assistant teaching professor in computer music at University of California San Diego, where he created the lecture course Blacktronika: Afrofuturism in Electronic Music, attended by many pioneers, including Goldie, Marshall Allen, and Questlove.
Louis Chude-Sokei
Louis Chude-Sokei is a writer, scholar, and author of The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics and Floating in a Most Peculiar Way. He is a professor of English and director of African American studies at Boston University. He is also editor of The Black Scholar, one of the nation’s leading Black studies journals, and founder of the sonic arts and archival project Echolocution.
Sheree Renée Thomas
Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning writer, poet, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and associate editor of the historic literary journal Obsidian. She is a contributor to Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda and a collaborator with Janelle Monáe on The Memory Librarian. Her books include Nine Bar Blues, Trouble the Waters, Sleeping Under the Tree of Life, Shotgun Lullabies, and the groundbreaking Afrofuturism anthologies Dark Matter and Africa Risen.
Ytasha L. Womack
Ytasha L. Womack is a scholar, filmmaker, dancer, and author of Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-F and Fantasy Culture; Rayla 2212 and Rayla 2213—a time-traveling / reincarnation series; Post Black: How a New Generation is Redefining African American Identity; and Beats, Rhymes & Life: What We Love and Hate About Hip-Hop. She directed the Afrofuturism dance film A Love Letter to the Ancestors from Chicago.