R&L Logo R&L Logo
  • GENERAL
    • Browse by Subjects
    • New Releases
    • Coming Soon
    • Chases's Calendar
  • ACADEMIC
    • Textbooks
    • Browse by Course
    • Instructor's Copies
    • Monographs & Research
    • Reference
  • PROFESSIONAL
    • Education
    • Intelligence & Security
    • Library Services
    • Business & Leadership
    • Museum Studies
    • Music
    • Pastoral Resources
    • Psychotherapy
  • FREUD SET
Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
share of facebook share on twitter
Add to GoodReads

Afrofuturism in Black Panther

Gender, Identity, and the Re-Making of Blackness

Edited by Karen A. Ritzenhoff and Renée T. White - Contributions by Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman; dann j. Broyld; Cynthia Baron; Dolita Dannêt Cathcart; Gabriel A. Cruz; Neal Curtis; Zeinabu irene Davis; Mikal J. Gaines; Giselle C. M. Greenidge; Paul Karolczyk; Clarence Lusane; Paul Moffett; Shayla Monroe; Karen A. Ritzenhoff; Sarah E. S. Sinwell; Lauren Steimer; Joshua Truelove; Renée T. White; Wayne Wong and Dominique Young

Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-making of Blackness, through an interdisciplinary and intersectional analysis of Black Panther, discusses the importance of superheroes and the ways in which they are especially important to Black fans. Aside from its global box office success, Black Panther paves the way for future superhero narratives due to its underlying philosophy to base the story on a narrative that is reliant on Afro-futurism. The film’s storyline, the book posits, leads viewers to think about relevant real-world social questions as it taps into the cultural zeitgeist in an indelible way. Contributors to this collection approach Black Panther not only as a film, but also as Afrofuturist imaginings of an African nation untouched by colonialism and antiblack racism: the film is a map to alternate states of being, an introduction to the African Diaspora, a treatise on liberation and racial justice, and an examination of identity. As they analyze each of these components, contributors pose the question: how can a film invite a reimagining of Blackness?

  • Details
  • Details
  • Author
  • Author
  • TOC
  • TOC
  • Reviews
  • Reviews
  • Features
  • Features
Lexington Books
Pages: 382 • Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-1-7936-2357-7 • Hardback • August 2021 • $139.00 • (£107.00)
978-1-7936-2359-1 • Paperback • January 2025 • $42.99 • (£35.00)
978-1-7936-2358-4 • eBook • August 2021 • $50.00 • (£38.00)
Subjects: Performing Arts / Film / History & Criticism, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Minority Studies

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.

Preface

Zeinabu irene Davis

Chapter 1: I Dream a World: Black Panther and the Re-Making of Blackness

Renée T. White

Chapter 2: The Power in Numbers: Ensemble Stunt Performance in Black Panther and Histories of Practice

Lauren Steiner

Chapter 3: From Expressivity to Equanimity: New Black Action in Black Panther

Wayne Wong

Chapter 4: Paid the Cost to be the Boss: Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, and the Future of the Black Biopic

Mikal J. Gaines

Chapter 5: Let Ayo Have a Girlfriend: Resisting Black Lesbian Erasure on Twitter

Sarah E. S. Sinwell

Chapter 6: “Tell Me a Story Baba”: Black Panther and Wakanda’s Foreign Policy in the Age of Neo-liberalism

Clarence Lusane

Chapter 7: The Underground Railroads as Afrofuturism: Enslaved Blacks that Imagined Freedom, Future, and Space

dann j. Broyld

Chapter 8: The Evolution of Dora Milaje: Wakanda’s Greatest Warriors in Comics and Film

Josh Truelove

Chapter 9: “The Prince Will Now Have the Strength of the Black Panther Stripped Away”: Reading Disability and Queerness in Killmonger

Dominique Young

Chapter 10: Only When She Wants To: Code-Switching in Black Panther

Paul Moffett

Chapter 11: The Dore Milaje in Real Life: A Continuing Legacy of African Warriors

Myron T. Strong, K. Sean Chaplin, and Giselle Greenidge

Chapter 12: Echoes of the History of Black Utopian Visions, “Black Manhood,” and Black Feminism in the Making of Black Panther

Dolita Cathcart

Chapter 13: Tradition, Purpose, and Technology: An Archaeological Take on the Role of Technological Progress in Black Panther

Shayla Monroe

Chapter 14: Reflections on Black Panther and the Traditions of Third Cinema

Cynthia Baron

Chapter 15: The Depiction of Homeschooling, Black Identity, and Political Thought in the Film Black Panther

Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman

Chapter 16: Two Paths to the Future: Radical Cosmopolitanism and Counter-Colonial Dignity in Black Panther

Neal Curtis

Chapter 17: My Blood Right: A Critical Analysis of Black Panther’s Killmonger, Colonialism, and Hybrid Identity

Gabriel A. Cruz

Chapter 18: The Other Worlds of Black Panther’s Purple Heart-Shaped Herb

Paul Karolczyk

About the Contibutors

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.


— Choice Reviews


This remarkable collection examines the complexities, power and significance of Black Panther from a wide range of highly pertinent perspectives, revealing the film's importance as both a piece of cinema and as a pointed intervention into cultural, social and political histories of representation. The editors have brought together a rich collection of rigorous and illuminating contributions, making this the key reference work on this ground-breaking film.


— Lisa Purse, University of Reading


A rich and enticing book that offers multiple perspectives on a genuine cultural phenomenon. A must read for anyone interested in Black Panther and the politics of contemporary US popular culture.


— Hervé Mayer, Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3


Featuring reflections by filmmakers, artists, fans, and scholars across disciplines and around the world, this book is more than just a resource for a critical reading of Black Panther; it is a veritable tome of the different threads present within this ever-evolving film. Superhero and fantasy films have an important role in producing and commenting on culture: they take us out of reality while helping us critically dissect the patterns of reality. This phenomenon is complicated but necessary, and each chapter methodically guides the reader through a different facet of media, identity, history, and reception, encouraging them to return to the film to watch it again with new knowledge and a new perspective.


— Charisse L'Pree Corsbie-Massay, Syracuse University


Evidence that Black Panther hit a raw nerve rests in this serious treatment of the copious topics instigated by this afrofuturistic superhero film. Praise for this collection of essays for the far-reaching implications the authors suggest for the study of Black Panther as an interrogation of the multibillion dollar industry that produced it and the state of the human condition for which the film serves as window and mirror. Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-making of Blackness explores why Black Panther is not merely an important film that you have to see just because it seemingly replaces the Hollywood white superhero with a black superhero, but why it’s a film we want to see as it centers black governance, black feminism and black culture within the convergence of global politics and technology in the context of real histories of enslavement, colonization, apartheid, racism and discrimination. The essays invoke the persistence of vision of black filmmakers, writers, actors, designers, scholars and spectators who expertly employ the master’s tools to re-imagine. An essential text for the study of Black Panther.


— Roxana Walker-Canton, University of Florida


Renée T. White’s & Karen A. Ritzenhoff’s book is a tour-de-force about the highly popular Marvel comic and its film adaptation. The impressive assemblage of contributors boldly theorizes concepts of Black identity, queer erasure, counter-colonialism dignity, Afrofuturism, and Black utopian visions that are celebratory and critical. This work is a page-turning essential read for academics, popular culture, and science fiction enthusiasts who seek to have their assumptions and principles about Black Panther challenged while exploring new historical, symbolic, and pedagogical frameworks on various dimensions of Blackness.


— Alexia Hudson-Ward, Associate Director of Research and Learning, MIT Libraries


It asks Black people to give themselves grace and to imagine how people carve out control and peace when there is no clear path. There is a constant call to action throughout Black Panther as reflected in Afrofuturism in Black Panther. What this book does well is to situate the conversation around Black Panther within an Afrocentric framework rather than a Eurocentric context. Like the film, this book uses an uncolonized mind to critique an uncolonized film.


— The Black Theatre Review


2/20/24, Choice: This title was included in the “Resources for Understanding and Engaging with Afrofuturism” feature.

Link: https://www.choice360.org/tie-post/resources-for-understanding-and-engaging-with-afrofuturism/



Afrofuturism in Black Panther

Gender, Identity, and the Re-Making of Blackness

Cover Image
Hardback
Paperback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-making of Blackness, through an interdisciplinary and intersectional analysis of Black Panther, discusses the importance of superheroes and the ways in which they are especially important to Black fans. Aside from its global box office success, Black Panther paves the way for future superhero narratives due to its underlying philosophy to base the story on a narrative that is reliant on Afro-futurism. The film’s storyline, the book posits, leads viewers to think about relevant real-world social questions as it taps into the cultural zeitgeist in an indelible way. Contributors to this collection approach Black Panther not only as a film, but also as Afrofuturist imaginings of an African nation untouched by colonialism and antiblack racism: the film is a map to alternate states of being, an introduction to the African Diaspora, a treatise on liberation and racial justice, and an examination of identity. As they analyze each of these components, contributors pose the question: how can a film invite a reimagining of Blackness?

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 382 • Trim: 6¼ x 9
    978-1-7936-2357-7 • Hardback • August 2021 • $139.00 • (£107.00)
    978-1-7936-2359-1 • Paperback • January 2025 • $42.99 • (£35.00)
    978-1-7936-2358-4 • eBook • August 2021 • $50.00 • (£38.00)
    Subjects: Performing Arts / Film / History & Criticism, Social Science / Media Studies, Social Science / Minority Studies
Author
Author
  • 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.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Preface

    Zeinabu irene Davis

    Chapter 1: I Dream a World: Black Panther and the Re-Making of Blackness

    Renée T. White

    Chapter 2: The Power in Numbers: Ensemble Stunt Performance in Black Panther and Histories of Practice

    Lauren Steiner

    Chapter 3: From Expressivity to Equanimity: New Black Action in Black Panther

    Wayne Wong

    Chapter 4: Paid the Cost to be the Boss: Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, and the Future of the Black Biopic

    Mikal J. Gaines

    Chapter 5: Let Ayo Have a Girlfriend: Resisting Black Lesbian Erasure on Twitter

    Sarah E. S. Sinwell

    Chapter 6: “Tell Me a Story Baba”: Black Panther and Wakanda’s Foreign Policy in the Age of Neo-liberalism

    Clarence Lusane

    Chapter 7: The Underground Railroads as Afrofuturism: Enslaved Blacks that Imagined Freedom, Future, and Space

    dann j. Broyld

    Chapter 8: The Evolution of Dora Milaje: Wakanda’s Greatest Warriors in Comics and Film

    Josh Truelove

    Chapter 9: “The Prince Will Now Have the Strength of the Black Panther Stripped Away”: Reading Disability and Queerness in Killmonger

    Dominique Young

    Chapter 10: Only When She Wants To: Code-Switching in Black Panther

    Paul Moffett

    Chapter 11: The Dore Milaje in Real Life: A Continuing Legacy of African Warriors

    Myron T. Strong, K. Sean Chaplin, and Giselle Greenidge

    Chapter 12: Echoes of the History of Black Utopian Visions, “Black Manhood,” and Black Feminism in the Making of Black Panther

    Dolita Cathcart

    Chapter 13: Tradition, Purpose, and Technology: An Archaeological Take on the Role of Technological Progress in Black Panther

    Shayla Monroe

    Chapter 14: Reflections on Black Panther and the Traditions of Third Cinema

    Cynthia Baron

    Chapter 15: The Depiction of Homeschooling, Black Identity, and Political Thought in the Film Black Panther

    Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman

    Chapter 16: Two Paths to the Future: Radical Cosmopolitanism and Counter-Colonial Dignity in Black Panther

    Neal Curtis

    Chapter 17: My Blood Right: A Critical Analysis of Black Panther’s Killmonger, Colonialism, and Hybrid Identity

    Gabriel A. Cruz

    Chapter 18: The Other Worlds of Black Panther’s Purple Heart-Shaped Herb

    Paul Karolczyk

    About the Contibutors

Reviews
Reviews
  • 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.


    — Choice Reviews


    This remarkable collection examines the complexities, power and significance of Black Panther from a wide range of highly pertinent perspectives, revealing the film's importance as both a piece of cinema and as a pointed intervention into cultural, social and political histories of representation. The editors have brought together a rich collection of rigorous and illuminating contributions, making this the key reference work on this ground-breaking film.


    — Lisa Purse, University of Reading


    A rich and enticing book that offers multiple perspectives on a genuine cultural phenomenon. A must read for anyone interested in Black Panther and the politics of contemporary US popular culture.


    — Hervé Mayer, Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3


    Featuring reflections by filmmakers, artists, fans, and scholars across disciplines and around the world, this book is more than just a resource for a critical reading of Black Panther; it is a veritable tome of the different threads present within this ever-evolving film. Superhero and fantasy films have an important role in producing and commenting on culture: they take us out of reality while helping us critically dissect the patterns of reality. This phenomenon is complicated but necessary, and each chapter methodically guides the reader through a different facet of media, identity, history, and reception, encouraging them to return to the film to watch it again with new knowledge and a new perspective.


    — Charisse L'Pree Corsbie-Massay, Syracuse University


    Evidence that Black Panther hit a raw nerve rests in this serious treatment of the copious topics instigated by this afrofuturistic superhero film. Praise for this collection of essays for the far-reaching implications the authors suggest for the study of Black Panther as an interrogation of the multibillion dollar industry that produced it and the state of the human condition for which the film serves as window and mirror. Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-making of Blackness explores why Black Panther is not merely an important film that you have to see just because it seemingly replaces the Hollywood white superhero with a black superhero, but why it’s a film we want to see as it centers black governance, black feminism and black culture within the convergence of global politics and technology in the context of real histories of enslavement, colonization, apartheid, racism and discrimination. The essays invoke the persistence of vision of black filmmakers, writers, actors, designers, scholars and spectators who expertly employ the master’s tools to re-imagine. An essential text for the study of Black Panther.


    — Roxana Walker-Canton, University of Florida


    Renée T. White’s & Karen A. Ritzenhoff’s book is a tour-de-force about the highly popular Marvel comic and its film adaptation. The impressive assemblage of contributors boldly theorizes concepts of Black identity, queer erasure, counter-colonialism dignity, Afrofuturism, and Black utopian visions that are celebratory and critical. This work is a page-turning essential read for academics, popular culture, and science fiction enthusiasts who seek to have their assumptions and principles about Black Panther challenged while exploring new historical, symbolic, and pedagogical frameworks on various dimensions of Blackness.


    — Alexia Hudson-Ward, Associate Director of Research and Learning, MIT Libraries


    It asks Black people to give themselves grace and to imagine how people carve out control and peace when there is no clear path. There is a constant call to action throughout Black Panther as reflected in Afrofuturism in Black Panther. What this book does well is to situate the conversation around Black Panther within an Afrocentric framework rather than a Eurocentric context. Like the film, this book uses an uncolonized mind to critique an uncolonized film.


    — The Black Theatre Review


Features
Features
  • 2/20/24, Choice: This title was included in the “Resources for Understanding and Engaging with Afrofuturism” feature.

    Link: https://www.choice360.org/tie-post/resources-for-understanding-and-engaging-with-afrofuturism/



ALSO AVAILABLE

  • Cover image for the book Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother
  • Cover image for the book American Noir Film: From The Maltese Falcon to Gone Girl
  • Cover image for the book The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies
  • Cover image for the book The Crow: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Classic Film, Revised and Updated
  • Cover image for the book Hello, Norma Jeane: The Marilyn Monroe You Didn't Know
  • Cover image for the book Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine
  • Cover image for the book A City Full of Hawks: On the Waterfront Seventy Years Later—Still the Great American Contender
  • Cover image for the book Blazing Saddles Meets Young Frankenstein: The 50th Anniversary of the Year of Mel Brooks
  • Cover image for the book I Want You Around: The Ramones and the Making of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School
  • Cover image for the book James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze
  • Cover image for the book Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel
  • Cover image for the book Double Solitaire: The Films of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
  • Cover image for the book The Taking of New York City: Crime on the Screen and in the Streets of the Big Apple in the 1970s
  • Cover image for the book I AM MCLOVIN: How Superbad Became the Biggest Comedy Hit of Its Generation
  • Cover image for the book Breaking the Code: Otto Preminger versus Hollywood’s Censors
  • Cover image for the book Hard to Watch: How to Fall in Love with Difficult Movies
  • Cover image for the book Godzilla FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the King of the Monsters
  • Cover image for the book Top Five: How ‘High Fidelity’ Found Its Rhythm and Became a Cult Movie Classic
  • Cover image for the book One with the Force: 18 Universal Truths in Star Wars
  • Cover image for the book The Worst We Can Find: MST3K, RiffTrax, and the History of Heckling at the Movies
  • Cover image for the book The Morph-Image: The Subjunctive Synthesis of Time
  • Cover image for the book Historical Dictionary of Chinese Cinema, Second Edition
  • Cover image for the book I See Dead People: The Making of ‘The Sixth Sense’
  • Cover image for the book Zeppo: The Reluctant Marx Brother
  • Cover image for the book American Noir Film: From The Maltese Falcon to Gone Girl
  • Cover image for the book The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies
  • Cover image for the book The Crow: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Classic Film, Revised and Updated
  • Cover image for the book Hello, Norma Jeane: The Marilyn Monroe You Didn't Know
  • Cover image for the book Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine
  • Cover image for the book A City Full of Hawks: On the Waterfront Seventy Years Later—Still the Great American Contender
  • Cover image for the book Blazing Saddles Meets Young Frankenstein: The 50th Anniversary of the Year of Mel Brooks
  • Cover image for the book I Want You Around: The Ramones and the Making of Rock ‘n’ Roll High School
  • Cover image for the book James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze
  • Cover image for the book Marlon Brando: Hollywood Rebel
  • Cover image for the book Double Solitaire: The Films of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
  • Cover image for the book The Taking of New York City: Crime on the Screen and in the Streets of the Big Apple in the 1970s
  • Cover image for the book I AM MCLOVIN: How Superbad Became the Biggest Comedy Hit of Its Generation
  • Cover image for the book Breaking the Code: Otto Preminger versus Hollywood’s Censors
  • Cover image for the book Hard to Watch: How to Fall in Love with Difficult Movies
  • Cover image for the book Godzilla FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the King of the Monsters
  • Cover image for the book Top Five: How ‘High Fidelity’ Found Its Rhythm and Became a Cult Movie Classic
  • Cover image for the book One with the Force: 18 Universal Truths in Star Wars
  • Cover image for the book The Worst We Can Find: MST3K, RiffTrax, and the History of Heckling at the Movies
  • Cover image for the book The Morph-Image: The Subjunctive Synthesis of Time
  • Cover image for the book Historical Dictionary of Chinese Cinema, Second Edition
  • Cover image for the book I See Dead People: The Making of ‘The Sixth Sense’
facebook icon twitter icon instagram icon linked in icon NEWSLETTERS
ABOUT US
  • Mission Statement
  • Employment
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility Statement
CONTACT
  • Company Directory
  • Publicity and Media Queries
  • Rights and Permissions
  • Textbook Resource Center
AUTHOR RESOURCES
  • Royalty Contact
  • Production Guidelines
  • Manuscript Submissions
ORDERING INFORMATION
  • Rowman & Littlefield
  • National Book Network
  • Ingram Publisher Services UK
  • Special Sales
  • International Sales
  • eBook Partners
  • Digital Catalogs
IMPRINTS
  • Rowman & Littlefield
  • Lexington Books
  • Hamilton Books
  • Applause Books
  • Amadeus Press
  • Backbeat Books
  • Bernan
  • Hal Leonard Books
  • Limelight Editions
  • Co-Publishing Partners
  • Globe Pequot
  • Down East Books
  • Falcon Guides
  • Gooseberry Patch
  • Lyons Press
  • Muddy Boots
  • Pineapple Press
  • TwoDot Books
  • Stackpole Books
PARTNERS
  • American Alliance of Museums
  • American Association for State and Local History
  • Brookings Institution Press
  • Center for Strategic & International Studies
  • Council on Foreign Relations
  • Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
  • Fortress Press
  • The Foundation for Critical Thinking
  • Lehigh University Press
  • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Other Partners...