Afrofuturism in Black Panther

Renée T. White is provost and executive vice president at The New School.Karen A. Ritzenhoff is professor of communication and women, gender, and sexuality studies at Central Connecticut State University.

• PrefaceZeinabu irene DavisChapter 1: I Dream a World: Black Panther and the Re-Making of BlacknessRenée T. WhiteChapter 2: The Power in Numbers: Ensemble Stunt Performance in Black Panther and Histories of PracticeLauren SteinerChapter 3: From Expressivity to Equanimity: New Black Action in Black PantherWayne WongChapter 4: Paid the Cost to be the Boss: Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, and the Future of the Black Biopic Mikal J. GainesChapter 5: Let Ayo Have a Girlfriend: Resisting Black Lesbian Erasure on TwitterSarah E. S. SinwellChapter 6: “Tell Me a Story Baba”: Black Panther and Wakanda’s Foreign Policy in the Age of Neo-liberalismClarence LusaneChapter 7: The Underground Railroads as Afrofuturism: Enslaved Blacks that Imagined Freedom, Future, and Spacedann j. BroyldChapter 8: The Evolution of Dora Milaje: Wakanda’s Greatest Warriors in Comics and FilmJosh TrueloveChapter 9: “The Prince Will Now Have the Strength of the Black Panther Stripped Away”: Reading Disability

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018) is not only a billion-dollar superhero film but also a profound examination of Black life in the global diaspora. Given this, a collection of essays on the film was inevitable. The essays White and Ritzenhoff gathered are not only impressive but also surpass expectations in considering Black Panther and its importance to new conceptions of Blackness in US culture. The essays survey a wide range of topics, connecting Coogler’s film to such subjects as neoliberalism, Black lesbianism, Afrofuturism, action aesthetics, Black manhood, colonialism, and the cosmopolitan. What binds the essays together, however, is the commitment to exploring the film in its historical and cinematic contexts, tying it to films such as Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and Peter Farrelly's The Green Book (both also 2018) but also paying close attention to cinematic production and industry issues. The essays gathered in this collection speak to one another fluently despite their wide variety of topics, making the collection cohere in insightful ways. This collection is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the enduring importance of Black Panther to understanding Blackness in US culture. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.