Alumni:
In this lecture, Lavan will guide listeners through the basic tenets and purposes of Afrofuturism. She will discuss the genesis of the movement, as well as the ways the term has evolved by briefly examining novels (Octavia Butler's Kindred), music (Drexciya/Janelle Monae), and movies (Black Panther, Fast Color). She will ask participants to familiarize themselves with Martine Syms' Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto.
Faculty Member: Makeba LavanDiscussion Date: Sept. 17 at 1 p.m.
Makeba Lavan is an Instructor in English at Grinnell College. Generally speaking, her research focuses on (African) American Studies, Afrofuturism/Speculative Fiction and Popular Culture. In the fall of 2018, Makeba was granted a fellowship in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality department at Harvard University, and a Teaching and Learning Technology Fellowship at CUNY’s Macaulay Honor’s College. In 2016, Makeba received the CUNY Mellon Humanities Alliance Fellowship, a new initiative that seeks to prepare graduate students for a successful teaching career at Community Colleges. Makeba has been published in Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies and Modern Language Studies. As part of Lost and Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, she co-edited “Realizing the Dream of A Black University” & Other Writings,” a collaborative publication of Toni Cade Bambara’s teaching materials from CUNY and Spelman College (2017). Makeba taught English Composition and literature courses at Lehman College from 2014-2018.