Project Details
Projekt
A Typology of African Science Fiction (2006–2018): Strategies of Self-Representation in the Global Cultural Marketplace
Applicant
Dr. Peter Maurits
Subject Area
African, American and Oceania Studies
General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
Term
since 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441611873
This project establishes a typology of African science fiction (SF) published between 2006 and 2018 from the perspective of African studies, science fiction scholarship, and comparative cultural studies. Its central aim is to investigate how the increasing involvement of global publishing during this period affected African SF formally, thematically, and medially. The pan-African and multilingual genre of African SF boomed during the 2006 to 2018 period, and scholars considered it a revolutionary mode of self-representation because it constituted a postcolonial rewriting of colonial SF, imagined alternative African futures, and because works were initially published independently. However, as the boom developed, international publishers and television networks including Marvel Comics, Disney Hyperion, and HBO increasingly appropriated African SF. To date, no studies exist that examine how this affected African SF. The central contribution of this project is to fill that gap, and provide insight into how African SF resisted or adapted to the demands of the global cultural marketplace, what hybrid forms emerged in this process, and what the consequences were for its alleged self-representational and emancipatory potential.This project follows three steps: 1) It establishes a working definition of African SF and a preliminary division of the boom in phases. 2) It determines a representative selection of African SF works and establishes a typology. Based on an initial analysis of form, theme, and medium of publication, up to five works of Portuguese, French, or English expression are selected for each phase. To establish the typology, the selection is subsequently analyzed in detail for the ideology of form, understood here as the symbolic message transmitted by the juxtaposition of multiple sign-systems. 3) It determines the trends and changes within the typology through comparative analysis of the different types, and correlates these with the heterogeneous demands of the global cultural marketplace as established in postcolonial scholarship.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Brazil, South Africa, United Kingdom
