“Griot Futurisms: Unapologetic Black Visioning of the Future” is the proposed title for the Afrofuturist symposium the Center for Africana Studies and Culture (CASC) in the IU School of Liberal Arts in Indianapolis is envisioning. Griot Futurisms will serve as an avenue for explorations of place, organizing for change, identifying problems, and world-building that is anchored to notions of kinship within the African diaspora and global community. This symposium engages the idea of Afrofuturism as an applied framework for community development and research, which is the way CASC and the Africana Studies program in the School of Liberal Arts approach the Africana Studies discipline. Conceptually, the proposed symposium reinvigorates notions of storytelling and cultural preservation as it pertains to exploring the roles that Afrofuturist creators, writers, and dreamers play within the modern Black diasporic world. Although centering on writers, the symposium will also welcome independent filmmakers, literary scholars in Science Fiction & Afrofuturism, and traditional Africana Studies scholars to discussions.
Anchoring this project are the Center for Africana Studies and Culture (CASC) and the Africana Studies program in collaboration with the Ray Bradbury Center, the Indiana Arts and Humanities Institute, the University Library, and the Kheprw Institute. The convener is CASC’s inaugural writer-in-residence Maurice Broaddus, a nationally renowned Afrofuturist writer, and our community partner will be the Kheprw Institute, where Broaddus is also the resident Afrofuturist. Given Indianapolis’s local history and geographic location (a few hours from New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Washington D.C., and Atlanta by plane), Griot Futurisms is an event that will attract a broad swath of audiences locally, nationally, and internationally.
