{"id":1966,"date":"2016-10-20T15:52:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T20:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/?p=1966"},"modified":"2016-10-20T15:55:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T20:55:51","slug":"combatting-anti-blackness-black-women-sci-fi-fantasy-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/combatting-anti-blackness-black-women-sci-fi-fantasy-authors\/","title":{"rendered":"Combatting Anti-Blackness: Black Women Sci-Fi &amp; Fantasy Authors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn the spirit of collaboration and mutual support, a working group of faculty, students and staff members selected \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iwu.edu\/annual-theme\/2016\/\">Women&#8217;s Power, Women&#8217;s Justice<\/a>&#8221; as a 2016-2017 intellectual theme that reflects faculty-led interest that we hope will permeate the campus community and conversations throughout the academic year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/07\/final_logo_color-web.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1738\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/07\/final_logo_color-web-300x72.png\" alt=\"final_logo_color-web\" width=\"300\" height=\"72\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/07\/final_logo_color-web-300x72.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/07\/final_logo_color-web.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In conjunction with this year\u2019s theme, students, staff and faculty will be participating in the campus-wide Combatting Anti-Blackness Against Women and Girls Initiative. To quote 2016 Colorblind Racism Summit keynote speaker Charlene Carruthers \u201907, anti-blackness is \u201ca system of beliefs and practices that destroy, erode and dictate the humanity of black people; the belief that there is something wrong with black people.\u201d The objectives of this initiative are to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>commit to combatting anti-blackness against black women and girls<\/li>\n<li>build community through the celebration of black women and girls<\/li>\n<li>create cross-disciplinary expressions of love and appreciation through scholarship<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This initiative, in an effort to support the theme of \u201cWomen\u2019s Power, Women\u2019s Justice\u201d, is a celebration of Black women and girls. In keeping with IWU\u2019s mission of commitment to diversity and social justice, this community will actively engage in curricular and co-curricular activities related to specifically to combatting anti-blackness against women and girls in our shared learning and living spaces and beyond.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Controversy at the Hugo Awards<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Hugo Awards are given annually in several categories of publications in science fiction and fantasy.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2015, a group known as the \u201cSad Puppies\u201d decided to lobby for a slate of writers and publications that aligned with their own view of how scifi\/fantasy \u2018should be\u2019.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/09\/download.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1925 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/09\/download.jpg\" alt=\"download\" width=\"201\" height=\"251\" \/><\/a>The effort was seen as \u201ca rebuke to the women, people of color, and LBGTQ folks seeking a place in the science-fiction\/fantasy world\u201d (Slate, 2016) and <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While some of the works put forth by the Sad Puppies were shortlisted and went on to win Hugo Awards, there was a backlash against the effort.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some categories, authors declined their nominations in protest of the Sad Puppies\u2019 effort, and others publicly decried the group itself.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voters also had their say in 2015: \u201cVoters opted to give \u201cno award\u201d in the five categories wholly overtaken by puppy nominees.\u201d (Slate, 2016)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2016, the Sad Puppies put forth a list of recommendations for awards, and although some of the works on their list won awards, the wins were attributed not to the Puppies, but to the high quality of the works. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The winner of the 2016 Hugo for Best Novel was N.K. Jemisin for \u201cThe Fifth Season.\u201d <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In an interview with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Jemisin said: \u201cIt\u2019s human nature that we come in our own flavours,\u201d fantasy author NK Jemisin tells the Guardian, \u201cand it doesn\u2019t make any sense to write a monochromatic or monocultural story, unless you\u2019re doing something extremely small \u2013 a locked room-style story. But very few fantasy worlds ever do that. In fact, epic fantasy should not do that.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In honor of NK Jemisin, this year&#8217;s winner of the prestigious Hugo Award, The Ames Library is proud to highlight the works of Jemisin and other black women science fiction and fantasy authors. All these books are available to check out, so please help yourself!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/10\/Black-Woman-Sci-fi-Timeline.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1968\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/10\/Black-Woman-Sci-fi-Timeline-1024x585.jpg\" alt=\"black-woman-sci-fi-timeline\" width=\"620\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/10\/Black-Woman-Sci-fi-Timeline-1024x585.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/10\/Black-Woman-Sci-fi-Timeline-300x171.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/10\/Black-Woman-Sci-fi-Timeline-768x439.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Katy Waldman, \u201cOh No, the Puppies Are Back for the 2016 Hugo Awards\u2014and As Angry As Ever.\u201d Slate, April 29, 2016. Accessed September 13, 2016 at <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/browbeat\/2016\/04\/29\/sad_and_rabid_puppies_are_trying_to_game_the_hugo_award_shortlists_again.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/browbeat\/2016\/04\/29\/sad_and_rabid_puppies_are_trying_to_game_the_hugo_award_shortlists_again.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to Annie Harb, for her hard work assembling a full list of black women authors in the science fiction and fantasy genres, for her work identifying titles to buy, and for the creation of the awesome timeline featured above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIn the spirit of collaboration and mutual support, a working group of faculty, students and staff members selected \u201cWomen&#8217;s Power, Women&#8217;s Justice&#8221; as a 2016-2017 intellectual theme that reflects faculty-led interest that we hope will permeate the campus community and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/combatting-anti-blackness-black-women-sci-fi-fantasy-authors\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":500,"featured_media":1926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,61,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ames-highlights","category-library-news","category-students"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/files\/2016\/09\/The_Fifth_Season_novel.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/500"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1971,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions\/1971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}