The papers explore the aesthetics of the future across different traditions. The first paper examines Frank Wilderson’s Afropessimism (2020) as an autotheoretical performance of apophatic faith in a future beyond “the end of the world.” The second paper analyzes Moral Re-Armament (MRA) and Shen Yun to assess new religious movements that use seemingly secular theatrical performances to communicate religious messages about a path to a better future. The final paper analyzes tropes and stereotypes originating during slavery, such as the mammy and Jezebel, and their connections to current policies and legislation that threaten our reproductive choices today.
This essay considers Frank Wilderson’s Afropessimism (2020) as an autotheoretical performance of apophatic faith in a futurity beyond “the end of the World.” While Afropessimism is often implicitly or explicitly conflated with (Black) nihilism as a quietist form of resignation, I argue that its “refusal of prescription” should be read as an apophatic catalyst for tarrying with problems that do not have “solutions.” Echoing Frantz Fanon’s recitation of Aimé Césaire, Afropessimism rhetorically poses the question of where one should “begin” and responds with “the end of the World, of course.” Here, I argue that “beginning” and “ending” contract in(to) the messianic time of the Now, yielding an orientation to the afterlife of slavery and an accompanying eschatology—sans teleology—of interminable abolition. This abolitionist drive concerns not (simply) any given institution or apparatus within the World but rather the Black(est) desire for gratuitous freedom from the Human and the World as such.
This paper employs analytical lenses from theater studies to evaluate the activities of new religions that use ostensibly secular theatrical performance to convey religious messages about the path to a better future. I focus on two examples, one historical and the other current: Moral Re-Armament (MRA), and Shen Yun. Both groups have attempted to use theater as a religious ritual that inspires spiritual awakening among theater-goers, though the specifics of their intended outcomes differ. To explore the tension between what a religious group intends and what they might actually be able to achieve, I juxtapose theater studies scholarship about performance activism and theaters of social change that can be applied to these examples in productive ways.
From tropes and stereotypes that originated during slavery, such as the mammy and jezebel, to policies and legislation that threaten our reproductive choices today, Black women have faced efforts to control their bodies and sexualities. Amid these efforts, dance becomes a sacred space of healing, freedom, and resistance for Black Christian women. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research and Black feminist and womanist scholarship to imagine Black Christian futures through dance that take us beyond the Black Church. I begin with liturgical dance as practiced in Black churches then move to pole dance as practiced at pole dance and fitness studios. In attending to generational differences in Black women who participate in liturgical dance and pole dance, I invite further reflection on how future generations can encounter the Spirit, find the divine within, and cultivate networks of care and support outside of traditional religious spaces and institutions.