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ABSTRACT
This article conceptualizes “FutureS” as a category of analysis, insisting on four semantic pillars that induce me to speak of “futureS” rather than “the future”. The capitalized “S” in both FutureS and futureS suggests that “future” does not exist in the (simplicity of any) singular, and this is largely due to three reasons: First, the “S” refers to the fact that futureS are causally intersected with both the past and the present. Second, it draws attention to the fact that futureS are intersected and molded by complexities and coexistences of glocal encounters of conflicting, competing, and complementary agencies, interests, contingencies, possibilities and options in the un/making and (not) sharing of futureS. Consequently, and third, futureS are made (as guided by agencies in power) and can be un*made (through resistance). In fact, agency is power's most virulent protagonist and antagonist at the very same time. This article will discuss agencies and their being triggered by dreams and hopes – and the memories they are pillared on. Delving into this thesis, this article compares two well-known conceptualizations of the integrative and causal intersection of past, memory and futureS: The German philosopher Walter Benjamin's “Angel of History” and the Adinkra philosophy of “Sankofa”. Thus framed, the article analyzes fictional and factual representations of memory-driven dream*hopes. First, Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech will be compared with J. Cole's hip-hop rereading of Black dreams against the backdrop of contemporary racial profiling in his song “Be Free”. Subsequently, the article delves comparatively into negotiations of Maafa with respect to the power of memory and dream*hopes in Audre Lorde's “A Litany for Survival” and Fred D'Aguiar's The Longest Memory.
Acknowledgments
The author owes sincere gratitude to Shirin Assa's dedicated, critical, and inspiring reading of the numerous draft versions of this article. Her thanks also go to Omid Soltani for a most caring and knowledgeable copyediting.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Gibson, William. “The Silence in Science Fiction.” Interview. Audio blog post. Talk of the Nation. NPR. 30 Oct. Citation1999. Time Code 11:55. Web. 1 Feb. 2017.
2. Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, Citation1992. 17.
3. Momady, Scott N. The Ancient Child. New York: Doubleday, Citation1989.
4. Cf. Adam, Barbara. “Future Matters: Challenge for Social Theory and Social Inquiry.” Cultura e comunicazione 1 (Citation2010): 47–55. Web. 1 Feb. 2017; Adam, Barbara and Chris Groves. Future Matters: Action, Knowledge, Ethics. Leiden: Brill, Citation2007.
5. The idea to read “future” as a category of analysis goes back to Deborah Nyangulu and a workshop held by her, Peggy Piesche and me.
6. In due correspondence with the usage of “FutureS” as a category of analysis, I will use it (in terms of grammar) as singularetantum, while futureS as a pluralized term for talking differently about “future” keeps requiring the grammatical plural.
7. Cf. Gibson, William. “The Silence in Science Fiction”. Interview. Audio blog post. Talk of the Nation. NPR. 30 Oct. 1999. Web. 1 Feb. 2017.
8. This is a quote often attributed to Aristotle (fourth century BC) by Diogenes Laërtius (third century AD), in Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Trans. and edited by R. D. Hicks. London: W. Heinemann, Citation1925. Book 5, Chapter 1, Verse 18.
9. Cf. Nettling, Astrid. “Ein Sturm weht vom Paradiese her”. 10 Feb. Citation2016. Deutschlandfunk Web. 10 Mar. 2017.
10. Akin to this Akan proverb, an Igbo proverb that was popularised by Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart (1956) says: “If you want to dry your body, you need to return to where the rain began to beat you” (Citation123).
11. An alliance of past and futureS, life and love, as it is in the second possible form of representing the religious/philosophical idea expressed by the Sankofa: An Ornate Heart.
12. He held the lectures in 1805/1806 in Jena, 1816/1817, and 1817/1818 in Heidelberg und between 1819 and 1831. Based on notes by Hegel and manually written transcripts of the lectures, Karl Ludwig Michelet reconstructed and edited the lectures in the years 1833-1836 as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe durch einen Verein von Freunden des verewigten. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, hg. v. Karl Ludwig Michelet, Berlin 1833–1836.
13. Cf. Farr, Arnold. “Whiteness Visible. Enlightenment Racism and the Structure of Racialized Consciousness.” What White Looks Like: African-American Philosophers on the Whiteness Question. Ed. George Yancy. New York: Routledge, Citation2004: 143–58; Arndt, Susan. Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen. Rassismus. München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2012.
14. This idea has been formulated by William Blake as: “The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.” (Blake, William. “Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses.” Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. Geoffrey Keynes. London: Nonesuch Library, Citation1961. 770).
15. Luther King, Martin, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” Great Speeches by African Americans. Ed. James Daley. Mineola New York: Dover Publications, Citation2006. 111–5.
16. King spoke in accordance with the linguistic norms of his own time, hence his usage of the “n-word”; yet, in line with contemporary attempts at talking about racism without reproducing its violent words, I refrain from citing that word in this article and thus replace it with the word “Black”.
17. The 1861–1865 Civil War not only united what is known as the US today territorially, but also forced the militarily conquered South to recognise the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution – the prohibition of slavery. This happened in 1865 and three years later, the 14th Amendment followed, which guaranteed Blacks the rights of citizenship in full. The 15th Amendment of 1870 secured them active and passive voting rights.
18. Cf. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character” (113).
19. Cf. Cole, J. “Be Free.” Citation2014. SoundCloud. Web. 20 Mar. 2017.
20. Cf. “J. Cole Performs “Be Free” on The Late Show with David Letterman.” Online video clip. YouTube. 10 Dec. Citation2014. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Susan Arndt
Susan Arndt is professor of English and Anglophone Literatures at Bayreuth University. She has worked and taught at Humboldt University, Berlin; St. Antony's College, Oxford; University of Frankfurt/Main and the Centre for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin. Trained as a scholar of English, German and African literatures, her theoretical framework comprises Transcultural Literary Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial and Diaspora Studies. She has published on whiteness, racism and British writing; gender and feminism in Nigerian literature; intertextuality and futurity. Currently, she is working on a book on conceptualizations of whiteness in British fiction with a focus on Shakespeare's Othello, The Tempest and The Sonnets. Moreover, she is the author of Weißsein – zur Geschichte eines Mythos. Postkoloniale Begegnungen mit der britischen Literaturgeschichte (2017), Rassismus: Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen (2012; 3rd edition 2016), The Dynamics of African Feminism (2002; in German 2000) and African Women's Literature, Orature and Intertextuality (1998). She is the spokesperson of the research cluster Future Migration: Network for Cultural Diversity.