Afrofuturism Explored! 2026
registration is open!
Please use this link to register for the conference:
Registration Form
Tickets for the dance performance can be obtained here:
Celestial Bodies Tickets
All events are free, but registration/tickets are required.
For a full list of the conference events, please see schedule below.
Zoom audience members can join the conference here:
Please note: There is a campus-wide event happening on Saturday at the same time as the conference, so parking my be difficult.
Please plan accordingly.
(The Central Parking Garage is closest to the event
and may fill up quickly.)
About the conference:
Afrofuturism Explored! was started with approval from the College of Performance, Visualization, and Fine Arts Dean of Academic Affairs in December 2023. The idea behind the conference was to give a much-needed platform to invite discourse surrounding the topic of Afrofuturism. Inaugural scholarly engagement with Afrofuturism focused on literature and the social commentary, and expanded to include other art forms – visual, movement, sound, film, et cetera – almost immediately. The climate in which Afrofuturism developed (prior to it being given its moniker in the early 1990s) was one of hopefulness in the face of unrest, solidarity via experimentation, and adding a new voice in a landscape of expanding academics. Today, Afrofuturism still retains these traits, and invites new waves of commentary, expression, and contemporary engagement with a variety of humanities, not only embracing the arts in all forms, but also anthropology, ethnomusicology, global language and cultural studies, historical studies, and much more.
This annual conference celebrates Black History Month combining scholarly research and creative practice related to Afrofuturism and other parallel movements such as Latinofuturism, Gothic Futurism, and First American Futurism. The conference is open to undergraduates, graduates, faculty, professionals, and anyone with an interest in Afrofuturism and the cultures through which it communicates. Submission related to adjacent art movements and genres such as Afro-Horror and Afro-Cuban Futurism or any other relevant topics are also welcome.
For information about Celestial Bodies, the new work by Everett Perry-Johnson, see below
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Tavia Nyong'o
Afrofuturism Explored! is excited to announce this year's conference keynote speaker is Yale Afrofuturist scholar, Tav Nyong'o.
His talk for the conference is titled, "Reckonings and Reverberations: The Cultural Politics of Silencing Black Music"
His new book Black Apocalypse: Afrofuturism at the End of the World is fantastic and you can grab a copy of that here: Tav's book on Amazon
You can find out more about Dr. Nyong'o's research and publications on his Yale website page here and here.
Tav Nyong'o
Celestial Bodies
a new work by
Everett Perry-Johnson
Celestial Bodies, an original work choreographed and devised by Everett Perry‑Johnson, traces a cosmic odyssey of star‑born beings who manifest on Earth as Egyptian Deities and Sentient Androids. This choreographic work examines themes of Other‑ness, excellence, sovereignty, embodiment, and the tension of existing in spaces that both include and resist marginalized bodies. Ultimately, the dancers’ ascension back to the cosmos becomes a reclamation of identity, memory, and posterity, inviting audiences to imagine worlds where difference is power, ancestry is technology, and the stars remain both origin and destiny.
The performance will take place after the conference in the LAAH/PVFA Black Box Theatre at 7pm. Celestial bodies will feature Everett Perry-Johnson, Jam Martinez, D'Mya Tabron, and students from both the College Station and Prairie View campuses.
Everett Perry-Johnson
Afrofuturism Explored! 2026 Schedule
9 am - Opening remarks
9:30 am - Business, Health, and Community panel
Margot Gage Witvliet - Sick Systems, Soft Futures: Afrofuturist Frameworks for Environmental Health and Healing
Kia Dolby - Designing Your Future: Using Afrofuturism to Help Students Chart Creative Paths
Chet Sisk - From Myth to Model: Building the Adaptive Civilization Through Afrofuturism
11:00 am - Artist Talk
Ernesto Cuevas – Cultivating Futures: Agricultural Epistemology and Inter-Spatial Navigation
11:45 am - Dance Performance Information
Everett Perry-Johnson – A brief intro to Celestial Bodies
12:00 pm - Lunch
1:00 pm- -Keynote speaker
Tavia Nyong’o - Reckonings and Reverberations: The Cultural Politics of Silencing Black Music
2:30pm - Performance panel
Justin Hopson – The World of the Duskfire Chronicles: Black-centered Speculative Worldbuilding
Ilana Rahim-Braden – Afrofuturism Explorations and the Synamodec Astrogorus and Levitate
Kevin Johnson - Satellites Drones and Nukes! (Poetry)
3:30pm - Literature panel
Claire Carly-Miles (TAMU ENG) - Bodies and Broods: Octavia Butler’s Short Stories and Notes
Rebecca Hankins (TAMU GLAC) - African science fiction and fantasy in Kenya
Tracee Worley (Radical Futures) - The Rigor of the Oracle: Unpacking the Research Methodologies of Octavia E. Butler
4:45 pm- -Closing remarks
6:00 pm-7:00 pm - Reception (LAAH lobby)
7:00 pm - Dance Performance
Celestial Bodies – a new work by Everett Perry-Johnson
(LAAH Black Box Theatre)
Past Conferences
These are some of the past events related to Afrofuturism. For more information about these past events, please email the team here.
