CONTENTS Africa & Science Fiction The emergence of Afro-Futurism in the last decade has created a new framework to discuss Africa. How does a continent still reckoning with a fractured past envision its many futures, and how are those futures reflected in its art? This piece examines filmmaker Neill Blomkamp's District 9, an Apartheid allegory in which robots are the despised race; novelist Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon, in which Nigerians must contend with a UFO landing; and the fascinating true history of Zambia's 1960s space program. Europe & Portraiture How have various forms of European portraiture sought to depict people of African descent throughout the ages? How have Black artists engaged with art forms rooted in European traditions? This essay explores Black figures depicted in Dutch, German, and French oil portraiture, seeking to name and contextualize the sitters. Who were these men and women, and how did they situate themselves within cultures in which they were perceived as "other"? Figures discussed include Angelo Solimon, a brilliant Viennese courtier; Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria's African goddaughter; and George Bridgetower, the violin prodigy for whom Beethoven originally wrote "The Kreutzer Sonatas." America & the Body as Art The construction of race in America was predicated on arbitrary classifications and a mandate to restrict the social and geographical mobility of people of African descent. Using the classic 1934 Claudette Colbert film Imitation of Life as an entrance, this piece looks at racial passing as a form of resistance to those restrictions on freedom. The essay also examines passing through an opposing perspective, looking at cases of "Blackfishing," white-to-Black passing, and its fallacy of White Empathy. The piece explores such figures as John Howard Griffin, author of Black Like Me, Ray Sprigle, Rachel Dolezal, and Jessica Krug. Canada & the Western The West has always represented a terminus in the Canadian imagination: it is where the land gives way to the Pacific, the last "empty" frontier to be "tamed" and absorbed into a seamless nationhood. What are the myths of Western expansion as filtered through Black experiences? How do we seek to depict them in art? This piece explores the myth of the West through late nineteenth and early twentieth century arrivals of Black settlers: the founding of a Black colony on Saltspring Island, British Columbia, as seen through historic photographs; the founding of Amber Valley in Alberta; and the figure of John Ware, Canada's "first black cowboy." Asia & the Romance The taboo of Black miscegenation runs deep in the countries of Asia. And yet, cross-cultural exchanges of every kind have taken place for centuries between Asia and Africa. This piece focuses on historical figures of African descent and their encounters with pan-Asian cultures: the story of Pate, an island off the northern coast of Kenya, home to the descendants of Chinese explorers shipwrecked there in the early fifteenth century; the life of Yasuke, the so-called "African Samurai," whose arrival in late sixteenth century Kyoto literally caused a riot; the Katanga Infanticide in 1970s Congo, an event so horrific many still contend it never happened. The conclusion explores interracial relationships in China's "Little Africa," Guanghzhou, and the current-day targeting of Africans for allegedly spreading the Coronavirus. Excerpted from Out of the Sun: On Art, Race, and History by Esi Edugyan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
