The Black Speculative Arts Movement is a global collective of scholars, artists, and innovators from Africa and the African Diaspora that seek to present, promote, and support human centered speculative imagination to catalyze streams of new thought that envision an inclusive future society.
This collection enters the global debate on the emerging field of Afrofuturism studies with a statement on the intersection of the future of African people with art, culture, technology, and politics by an international array of scholars and artists contributing to the discussion of Black futurity in the 21st century. The contributors analyze and respond to the invisibility or mischaracterization of Black people in the popular imagination, in science fiction, and in philosophies of history.
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Black Speculative Arts Movement and Carnegie Hall Announces 2025 Digital Art Exhibition
Black Speculative Arts Movement and Carnegie Hall Announces 2025 Digital Art Exhibition
“Black Admiral”
by Luiz Gustavo Nostalgia (Brazil)
Generative art, analog collage
The Nuevo Muntu and Los Sonidos de la Nueva Atlantida: An Exploration of Afro-Indigenous Sonic Artistry
FUTURE WAVES CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 12-15TH, 2025 DAKAR, SENEGAL
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FUTURE WAVES CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 12-15TH, 2025 DAKAR, SENEGAL > <
AFROFUTURISM 2.0 AND THE WORLD Festival & Conference
SEPTEMBER 12-15 2025
DAKAR, SENEGAL
FUTURE WAVES: Afrofuturism 2.0 and The World is a multi-week, multi-disciplinary festival and conference that brings together brilliant minds from the global south and north, and celebrates the vibrant worlds of art, music, research, commerce, and technology, all through the lens of Black creativity and speculative vision. With special guests from Senegal, Colombia, Brazil, South America, the U.S.A., Europe, and África.
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
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NOW AVAILABLE!!! -----
“A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the intellectual power and political depth of the Black speculative imagination.” —Alex Zamalin, author of Black Utopia: The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism
In Afrofuturism and World Order, Reynaldo Anderson delves into the evolution of Black speculative thought and Afrofuturism from the early twentieth century to the present day.
By locating Afrofuturism within an African geography of reason, he situates the past, present, and future of people of African descent at the intersection of speculative philosophy, science fiction, futurology, artificial intelligence, climate change, and geopolitics.
Historically, Afrofuturism theorized futures for Black Americans through merging their lived experiences with science fiction, technology, music, and art. Drawing from adaptations in Black culture and speculative thought during the Cold War, Anderson addresses the shifting focus of the genre from American to transnational, as well as the implications of modern existential threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
By tracing the Black speculative tradition from its overlaps with Africana esotericism and certain African diaspora regions, to its intersections with astroculture and modernism, to the works of Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Octavia Butler, to the aesthetic politics of the Black Speculative Arts movement, and beyond, Anderson illuminates how Afrofuturism participates in an increasingly multipolar world.
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Afrofuturism and World Order
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson
Dr. Reynaldo Anderson currently serves as the Graduate Director and Associate Professor of Africology and African American Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reynaldo is currently the Executive Director and co-founder of the Black Speculative Arts Movement.
FEATURED ARTICLES
TIME talks black futures in a recent article featuring The Black Speculative Arts Movement historic collaboration with Carnegie Hall journeying into the world of Afrofuturism.
The Cultural Frontline celebrates the unique, exciting, global moment of The Black Speculative Arts Movement and its contributions to the developments in Afrofuturism.
The Critics Notebook explores the Afrofuturist energy shift brought to the most institutional music hall in New York by the Black Speculative Arts Movement.
RollingStone
A look inside the new Netflix animated series from Everett Downing Jr. and Patrick Harpin about an intergalactic bounty hunter — an exciting addition to Afrofuturism.
The conversation about the transition of Afrofuturism 2.0, a pan-African initiative of the diaspora, to its adoption by the continent.
THE AFROFUTURISM TV
WATCH INTERVIEWS, PANEL DISCUSSIONS, SEMINARS, DOCUMENTARIES, AND MOVIES
Carnegie Hall Announces BSAM Collaboration with 2024 Festival and Exhibition
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Carnegie Hall Announces BSAM Collaboration with 2024 Festival and Exhibition -
Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice
January–May 2024
Launching Jan 24’
Join us on a thought-provoking journey through artistic movements in classical music, jazz, cabaret, opera, art song, and more as we investigate the forces that led to the fall of the Weimar Republic— and the many lessons about the fragility of democracy that can be gleaned from its extraordinary collapse.
UPCOMING VIRTUAL AND IN PERSON EVENTS
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UPCOMING VIRTUAL AND IN PERSON EVENTS -
CARNEGIE HALL: Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice
The centerpiece of Carnegie Hall’s 2023–2024 season is a powerful exploration of one of the most complex and consequential chapters in modern human history: Germany’s Weimar Republic of 1919–1933. Even with a progressive new constitution and the adoption of democracy, Germany emerged from World War I into a period of overwhelming economic hardship, social inequality and unrest, political polarization, and extremism. These challenges paved the way for the opportunistic rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, ultimately leading to the outbreak of World War II and the horrific devastation and genocide that followed.
Yet despite the turmoil and upheaval of the Weimar period, the arts and culture flourished as artists sought bold and innovative avenues for creative expression and sociopolitical commentary. At the same time, a thriving and decadent nightlife provided desperately needed escapism from the struggles of daily life, becoming an essential part of the social fabric.
Join us on a thought-provoking journey through artistic movements in classical music, jazz, cabaret, opera, art song, and more as we investigate the forces that led to the fall of the Weimar Republic— and the many lessons about the fragility of democracy that can be gleaned from its extraordinary collapse.
“Carnegie examines the fragility of democracy. Democracy was young in Weimar Germany. Artists and politicians groped toward a better future, but tyranny turned out to be easier.”
Carnegie Festival Events
Carnegie Festival Events
Germany had a profound influence on the intellectual development and worldview of author and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Join us for four insightful online talks as we celebrate the release of Tim Fielder’s graphic novel adaptation of The Comet, a seminal work Du Bois wrote in 1920. Discussion topics include the themes of race and religion and the work’s standing within the Afrofuturist lexicon.
Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 7:00 PM (multiple dates)
Opening Night Talk with Tim Fielder, Reynaldo Anderson, and Julian Chambliss. Moderated by Calvin Reid of Publisher’s Weekly.
Aventureras showcases a collection of paintings by Mexican naïf artist Ximena Castro, who fearlessly confronts and challenges conventional notions of female sexuality while paying homage to the pivotal moment in history when women, fresh from the crucible of World War I, seized newfound freedoms, igniting an artistic renaissance during the Weimar Republic.
This project by Nkolo Ntyam and the Black Speculative Arts Movement Cameroon explores the impact of German colonialism in Cameroon and the Weimar Republic in Germany. The exhibition illuminates cultural intersections, colonial legacies, and their contemporary consequences, fostering dialogue between the two nations’ histories.
Available through June 30.
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