Formal Experimentation and Time Travel As a Reconceptualization Strategy in Anthony Joseph’s The African Origins of Ufos
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2017.i10.521Abstract
Anthony Joseph’s groundbreaking novel The African Origins of UFOs (2006) is a challenging example of Afrofuturist speculative fiction. Divided into three interweaving sections set in space in the future, on land in the present and in water in the past, this eccentric novel draws on time travel as a means to reconsider notions of race, identity, exile and collective memory. Charged with innumerable allusions, Joseph’s experimental style, blending poetry and prose, is an ideal counterpart to the richness and variety of content, whereby the conflation of past, present and future brings about a reconceptualization of hegemonic discourses on the black diaspora.References
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---. “The Continuous Diaspora: Experimental Practice/s in Contemporary Black British Poetry.” “Black” British
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Ramey, Lauri. “Introduction.” The African Origins of the UFOs. Ed. Anthony Joseph. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2006. XI-XX.
---. “Situating a ‘Black’ British Poetic Avant-Garde.” “Black” British Aesthetics Today. Ed. R. Victoria Arana. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 79-100.
Rieder, John, and Cristina Bacchilega. “History and Its Others in Afrofuturism.” Iperstoria, Issue 8 (Fall 2016): 16-21.
http://www.iperstoria.it/joomla/images/PDF/Numero_8/monografica_8/John%20Rieder%20&%20Cristina%20Bacchilega_intestato.pdf. Last visited August 31, 2017.
http://cordite.org.au/reviews/alizadeh-joseph. Last Visited August 31, 2017.
Buck-Morss, Susan, “Hegel e Haiti. Schiavi, filosofi e piantagioni: 1792-1804.” Spettri di Haiti: dal colonialismo francese all’imperialismo americano. Ed. Roberto Cagliero and Francesco Ronzon. Verona: Ombre Corte, 2002. 21-59.
Césaire, Aimé, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land – Cahier d’un retour au pays natal. 1956. Translated by Mireille Rosello with Annie Pritchard. Introduction by Mireille Rosello. Bloodaxe: Highgreen, Tarset,
Northumberland, 1995.
Coleman, Ornette. “Prime Time for Harmolodics.” Down Beat July 1983: 54-55. In Gioia (1990), 43.
Dery, Mark (1994). “Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose.” Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture.The South Atlantic Quarterly, 92.4 (1993): 735-778.
Elia, Adriano. “The Languages of Afrofuturism.” Lingue e Linguaggi 12 (2014): 83-96.
http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/linguelinguaggi/article/view/13733. Last Visited August 31, 2017.
---. “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Proto-Afrofuturist Short Fiction: The Comet.” Il Tolomeo 18 (2016): 173-186.
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press, 2008.
Gioia, Ted. The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Joseph, Anthony. The African Origins of the UFOs. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2006.
---. “The Continuous Diaspora: Experimental Practice/s in Contemporary Black British Poetry.” “Black” British
Aesthetics Today. Ed. R. Victoria Arana. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 150-56.
Nicosia, Gerald. “A Lifelong Commitment to Change: The Literary Non-Career of Ted Joans.” Teducation. Selected Poems 1949-1999. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1999. I-VIII.
Ramey, Lauri. “Introduction.” The African Origins of the UFOs. Ed. Anthony Joseph. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2006. XI-XX.
---. “Situating a ‘Black’ British Poetic Avant-Garde.” “Black” British Aesthetics Today. Ed. R. Victoria Arana. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009. 79-100.
Rieder, John, and Cristina Bacchilega. “History and Its Others in Afrofuturism.” Iperstoria, Issue 8 (Fall 2016): 16-21.
http://www.iperstoria.it/joomla/images/PDF/Numero_8/monografica_8/John%20Rieder%20&%20Cristina%20Bacchilega_intestato.pdf. Last visited August 31, 2017.
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2017-12-01
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