This page is referenced by:

• 1 2019-02-14T17:46:51-08:00 Course Texts 58 plain 2019-05-09T11:47:35-07:00

  Binti by Nnedi Okorafor 

  Winner of the 2016 Hugo Award (Novella)
  Winner of the 2015 Nebula Award (Novella)
  Winner of the 2017 NOMMO Award (Novella)
  Finalist for the 2015 British Science Fiction Association Award (Novella)
  Finalist for the 2016 British Fantasy Award (Novella)
  Finalist for the 2016 Locus Award (Novella)
  
  Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach. If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.
  From Worlds Without End

  Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

  Finalist for the 2014 British Science Fiction Association Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2014 Red Tentacle Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2014 Tiptree Award (Novel)
  
  When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria's most populous and legendary city, three people wandering along Bar Beach (Adaora, the marine biologist- Anthony, the rapper famous throughout Africa- Agu, the troubled soldier) find themselves running a race against time to save the country they love and the world itself... from itself. Lagoon expertly juggles multiple points of view and crisscrossing narratives with prose that is at once propulsive and poetic, combining everything from superhero comics to Nigerian mythology to tie together a story about a city consuming itself. At its heart a story about humanity at the crossroads between the past, present, and future, Lagoon touches on political and philosophical issues in the rich tradition of the very best science fiction, and ultimately asks us to consider the things that bind us together--and the things that make us human.
  From Worlds Without End

  Kabu-Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor

  Finalist for 2013 Locus Award (Collection)
  
  Kabu-Kabu-unregistered illegal Nigerian taxis-generally get you where you need to go. Nnedi Okorafor's Kabu-Kabu, however, takes the reader to exciting, fantastic, magical, occasionally dangerous, and always imaginative locations you didn't know you needed. This debut short story collection by an award-winning author includes notable previously published material, a new novella co-written with New YorkTimes-bestselling author Alan Dean Foster, six additional original stories, and a brief foreword by Whoopi Goldberg.
  From Worlds Without End

  Monster Portraits by Del Samatar and Sofia Samatar

  Recommended Reading by NPR's Book Concierge
  Del's artwork nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award (2018)
  
  Relentlessly original and brilliantly hybrid, Monster Portraits investigates the concept of the monstrous through a mesmerizing combination of words and images. An uncanny and imaginative autobiography of otherness, it offers the fictional record of a writer in the realms of the fantastic shot through with the memories of a pair of Somali-American children growing up in the 1980s. Operating under the sign of two--texts and drawings, brother and sister, black and white, extraordinary and everyday--Monster Portraits multiplies, disintegrates, and blends, inviting the reader to find the danger in the banal, the beautiful in the grotesque. Accumulating into a breathless journey and groundbreaking study, these brief fictions and sketches claim the monster as a fragmentary vastness: not the sum but the derangement of its parts. Del Samatar's drawings conjure beings who drag worlds in their wake. World Fantasy Award-winning author Sofia Samatar responds with allusive, critical, and ecstatic meditations. Together they have created a secret history of the mixed-race child, a guide to the beasts of an unknown mythos, and a dreamer's iconography. The monstrous never looked so simultaneously haunting and familiar.
  From Worlds Without End

  The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark

  Finalist for the 2018 Nebula Award (Novella)
  Finalist for the 2019 Hugo Award (Novella)
  Finalist for the 2019 Locus Award (Novella)
  
  In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air - in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie's trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God's Drums. But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations. Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God's Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.
  From Worlds Without End

  Everfair by Nisi Shawl

  Finalist for the 2016 Nebula Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2016 Tiptree Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2017 Campbell Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2017 Locus First Novel Award

  
  Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated. Nisi Shawl's speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another, in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of history.
  From Worlds Without End

  The Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson

  Finalist for the 2000 Nebula Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2000 Tiptree Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2001 Hugo Award (Novel)
  Finalist for the 2001 Philip K. Dick Award (Novel)

  
  It's Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance, and pageantry. Masked "Midnight Robbers" waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. But to young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favorite costume to wear at the festival -- until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgivable crime. Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth -- and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen's legendary powers can save her life... and set her free.
  From Worlds Without End

  Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

  Finalist for the 2018 Andre Norton Award (Young Adult Novel)
  Finalist for the 2019 Locus First Novel Award
  Winner of the 2018 Dragon Award (Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel)
  
  Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie's Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers... and her growing feelings for an enemy.
  From Worlds Without End

  Other Stories

  China Miéville, “Covehithe”
       Finalist for 2011 British Science Fiction Award (Short Story)
  Warren Cariou, “An Athabasca Story”
  Deji Bryce Olukotun, "Four Lions"
  Henrietta Rose-Innes, "Poison" 
      Winner of the 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing
  Acan Innocent Immaculate, “Wishful Thinking”
  Walter Dinjos, “Mama Mmiri”
  Sofia Samatar, “An Account of the Land of Witches”
  Sofia Samatar, “Ogres of East Africa”
      Finalist for 2015 Locus Award (Short Story)
  P. Djèlí Clark, “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”
      Finalist for the 2019 Nebula Award, 2019 Hugo Award, 2019 Locus Award, 2019 Sturgeon Award
     (Short Story)
• 1 2019-04-25T21:34:39-07:00 The Colonization of Bodies in Okorafor's "The Popular Mechanic" and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study 21 plain 2021-01-13T05:20:09-08:00              "The Popular Mechanic," from Nnedi Okorafor's Kabu-Kabu, is a petro-speculative short story set in the near future about a Nigerian family who suffers from the impacts of American colonization in their homeland. The Nigerian government, whose country is rich in oil, sells its products to American oil companies and invests the income in the pockets of the officials instead of dispersing it throughout the country. This leads to the strict regulation of oil and destruction of the Nigerian economy, leaving locals desperate for income and oil. Anya, a medical student and the only child of the family in the story, is raised by her mother and her father ("Papa") who is physically impaired for the majority of her childhood due to an oil accident that left him with severe burns and an amputated arm. The accident was a product of American oil companies' presence in Nigeria; because of their control of every oil source in the area, the cost of oil was raised astronomically. Nigerians could no longer afford to buy oil which left mechanics like Papa, who relied on oil to provide for their families, desperate for it. The news of a pipeline bursting was a miracle to the locals, and once they got wind of it they raced to the source with buckets and bottles in hand. Papa was among this crowd, but one afternoon things went horribly wrong: someone lit a cigarette in the midst of all of the oil causing a major explosion and many deaths. Papa survived with a few severe burns and the loss of an arm. Under the guise of "paying reparations," American scientists travelled to Nigeria and gave Papa a mechanical arm, but once he came home from the surgery, it's clear that more had changed than just his physical capabilities. Anya says, "As time progressed, she saw her father smile less and less. These days, he was in 'one of his moods' quite often. Volunteering his body to the American scientists had been the biggest mistake of his life." This story is a major petro-speculative moment in Kabu-Kabu because it shows how on a national level, oil rigging destroyed Nigeria's entire economy and on an individual level, how it permanently affected the quality of life of the Nigerian people.

  Economic Imperialism's role in "The Popular Mechanic"

           While “The Popular Mechanic” heavily focuses on the effects of American oil companies pillaging the African continent and the role that their own governments play in this problem, it also makes readers think about the colonization of African bodies. Papa becomes less human and empathetic as he ages with his mechanical arm, and becomes angrier towards his family and careless with his actions. Anya states that, "The Americans came by once in a while to see how he was doing and type his words into their portables. The side effects of the transplant were well noted. Periods of delusion, paranoia, and mild incontinence were all on the list. They couldn’t explain any of them. Anya was sure that none of the results from her father’s experience—from the delusions to the incontinence—would reach the American newspapers or scientific journals." Her father and the other victims that the Americans "helped" are then revealed to have only been what was essentially a guinea pig experiment. After the scientists had run their tests and gotten their data, the same company sought out American volunteers for cybernetic arms, ones that were better and had less side effects than the ones the Nigerians were given. This shows that even though the enslaving of Africans was supposed to have ended with the Thirteenth Amendment, Americans have continued to colonize them through economic imperialism, which is exemplified in "The Popular Mechanic." Through the colonization of African resources, oil companies gained control of not only their land, but the inhabitants as well. When Americans reach out to provide charity to the native people, as they do with Papa and his mechanical arm, they are not actually "helping" because they are the root cause of the problem.

  The Tuskegee Syphilis Study: A Historical Example of Body Colonization

           Even though “The Popular Mechanic”is a fictional story, this matter has been seen throughout history and one of the most horrifying examples of this is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. This study began in 1932 and was continued for forty years by the Public Health Service in America; "the study initially involved 600 black men–399 with syphilis, 201 who did not" (CDC). These men were either infected with the disease or received aggressive, ineffective treatments; when penicillin was offered as a syphilis treatment in the 1940s, these men were not offered the option to be treated with penicillin and were also not allowed to leave the study. It was later revealed that these men also were never told about the experiment. They were told that they would receive healthcare, food and more if they agreed to the testing, which was an offer that seemed too good to be true for a black man in the early twentieth century. This blatant and inhumane treatment was not brought to the public eye until 1972; throughout the 1970s, there were court settlements that paid back those affected and their families, but it was not until May 16th, 1997 when a formal apology was issued by President Bill Clinton.

  American Colonization of African Bodies in both texts

              The fictional example of Papa in Okorafor's “The Popular Mechanic” and the very real history of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study both focus on the colonization of the bodies of Africans and those of African descent. The concept of economic imperialism is what allowed white Americans to colonize the bodies of both the Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims and Papa in Okorafor's story. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims offered their bodies and ultimately their lives for food security, health care, and (appallingly) burial insurance. For white Americans, these would have been the basic essentials in life, but because the test subjects were of African descent and lived in an era where they were seen as inferior, they had to choose between struggling in poverty or subjecting their bodies to unknown governmental tests. They had no right to question or decline what the Public Health Service did to them because as black men, they had no voice. In "The Popular Mechanic," Papa becomes a half-human, half-techno hybrid because he was offered free treatment and the opportunity to be whole again. In turn, he traded any surety that he would remain the same person or even a guarantee that the arm would not cause harm. By the end of the story it's almost like there are moments when the arm begins to take over him. In both of these examples, black men's bodies are colonized by white Americans out of a desire to use them as guinea pigs for medical research instead of purely altruistic intentions, which is how they originally portrayed themselves. In her text, Okorafor is almost reminding readers that economic imperialism and the colonization of black/African bodies is still a reality. Even though "The Popular Mechanic" is fictional, the experiences of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims and other similar cases are very much factual aspects of American history.
• 1 2019-04-27T04:10:14-07:00 The distance between Africa and African Americans 9 plain 2019-05-01T11:56:21-07:00

  The African American experience has been largely one of displacement, extreme mobility throughout history—often resulting in deterritorialization, and an erosion of social and cultural identity.

                              -Rodima-Taylor and Zokou
  
  Daivi Rodima-Taylor and Zadi Zokou wrote a blog post commenting on the documentary BlacknBlack, and they mentioned that the documentary provides information on the relations between African Americans and Africans. The quote above focuses on African Americans, and the problems they have faced with their social and cultural identity. Since African Americans were displaced by slavery and forced to move into new environments, their cultural identity was lost. As time progresses, many are working to find their identity in the world, but the displacement has caused some distance with the continent of Africa and its people.
  
  The many years that these people have spent with the colonizer has caused them to unconsciously adopt some of the dominant culture's ideologies about Africa. As the African Americans began to assimilate into the dominant culture, they needed to position themselves in a position to seem more civilized. By working to be accepted by the dominant culture, African Americans were slowly eroding their cultural identity which would eventually be lost over generations.
  
  The connection with the motherland would be lost, and the younger members of the African American community will continue to see Africa and Africans in the perspective of the colonizer where the country is starving and uncivilized. Nnedi Okorafor uses two distinct stories to give commentary on the disconnect that happens between African Americans and Africans or Africa.

  Relevance of the akata
  The first story that Nnedi Okorafor uses is “Icon” from the collection Kabu-Kabu where an African American journalist travels to Nigeria to get a news story Throughout the story. Okorafor creates a contrast between Richard and the other African men. Throughout the work, Richard is referred to negatively as a black American. The word “akata” gets used in the story when Icon calls Ray a “idiot akata.” The use of the word shows the distinct between the two groups of people. Daivi-Taylor and Zokou’s blog post also includes the term akata, and it gives some background. The term is a Yoruba word that “originally refers to a ‘cat who does not live at home, a wild cat,’ sometimes used to refer to African immigrants by the people on the continent.” A deeper looking at akata shows how the African people view Americans as the group who roams but doesn’t try to learn more about the homeland.
  
  The term akata appears to have a negative connotation because Africans could have seemed the American arrogance coming from African American with their sense of entitlement over the poor country of Africa. The term akata is used in the text because Richard expects to come to Nigeria and have a connection already built with the people. He doesn’t realize that his behaviors are different from that of the typical African because he is influenced by colonization.
  
  After having so many generations that have lived in the united states, African Americans have developed to closely resemble and model themselves after successful white people as a means of survival. The influence from the dominant culture affects the views that African Americans have on African and Africans.

  
  A more relatable and modern look at the disconnect.

  The post chapter of Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon demonstrates the distance between Africans and African Americans because she shows that not having a direct tie to Africa makes the people not feel any attachment.
  
  The chapter focuses on a group of African American, Pre-med college students in Chicago. The students are preparing for a study group, and they also discuss the event happening in Nigeria. As the characters talk, a description is given about their dress, and most of the students have on popular brand clothing. Okorafor seems to show that the social identity of African Americans in the United States comes from the brands that they wear because it shows their status.
  
   After giving insight into their outfits, she moves to focus more on their comments about the events happening in Nigeria. The students have distanced themselves from the continent of Africa because they blame it for slavery. They do not see where Africa benefitted them in anyway. One of the female students, Nature, states that “what’s Africa ever done for me?” (303), and her question is followed by Jordan stating that Africa has only enslaved their ancestors (303). She does not consider the rich culture that could have been passed down had the slave trade not interrupted and mixed all the different tribes together. The comments by the students shows how the movement has deteriorate the cultural identities that these individuals have because they do not see how there are still influence from Africa in the African Americans live their lives today.
  
  They place the blame of slavery on African without considers the impact of colonization. The students seem to do more victim blaming than trying to be understanding and building a connection with the land where most of their ancestors came from.

• 1 2019-04-27T03:53:11-07:00 The Breakdown of Western Influence in Spider the Artist 5 plain 2019-05-01T12:06:14-07:00
  Nnedi Okorafor’s story “Spider the Artist” found in her collection Kabu-Kabu focuses on an oil village where pipelines run throughout the area. The main character identifies the residents of the village as “pipeline people” because the influence of oil is so strong in the village.
  
  While oil plays an important part of their culture, the residents living in the village are not able to access the oil. Western oil companies worked with the government to control the resident’s access to the pipeline to deter them from bunkering (link). The problem that emerges is that these western oil companies are colonizing the pipelines which are not theirs.
  
  The ownership of the pipeline belongs to the villagers because they have lived with the oil pipelines for generations. These companies coming in to take control of the oil screams colonization because they are taking the resources from the residents and denying access to them.
  The government and western oil companies take it further to secure that the power stays with them by implementing the Zombies to “combat pipeline bunkering” (104).  These bots are like the officers or military regime left in place to keep the villagers in line.
  The main goal of the bots is to keeps the locals away from their indigenous resources so that the foreigners will continue to have access to it.
  As time goes along, the main character Eme begins to establish a bond with one of the bots. Readers can begin to see that using enforcers on the ground does not always because face to face interactions with the locals can break the othering that the western companies rely on to fulfill their mission.
  
  It is easy to take over someone’s land or resources when you view them as savage, uneducated, or believe they do not know how to use them. However, it becomes harder to persuade someone, or in this case something else, to take someone’s resources when they have an in-person connection. The othering that Western oil companies rely on to make people view the locals as inadequate for controlling their own oil is broken down.
  
  When the bond is made between Udide, the bot, and Eme the foundation is created for a duo that will fight back against the colonization of resources. It also shows that othering a group of people can only be successful when the dominant group is present to continually spread the stereotypes or false information about the group to the greater population.