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Introduce yourself to the class (use pictures, record a video, show us your pets, your favorite foods, and your favorite spaces)

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Introduce yourself to the class (use pictures, record a video, show us your pets, your favorite foods, and your favorite spaces)

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Hello! My name is Cita O'Brien, and I am a senior at MNSU. This spring I will be graduating with a BA in literary studies and minor in creative writing.
I have two cats, Silvin and Zave. I adopted them both from an online animal shelter based in Edin Prairie called Second Hand Hounds. Zave is a large brown tabby who loves to clean himself and watch the birds from the kitchen window. Silvin is part maine coon, but despite his breed, he is rather small, which is fitting because he loves being treated like a baby.
When I'm not spending time with my cats, I'm with my best friend in Henderson, driving around his classic 1920s Model T's: Lizzie and Leo.
My absolute favorite place to travel is up to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan--specifically Pictured Rocks National Park. I go there every year and it never gets old!

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Silvin (left) and Zave (right) having a snuggle together

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Silvin (left) and Zave (right) having a snuggle together

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A great view of Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks

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A great view of Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks

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Introduce your student/professional self to the class (what do you do? What do you want to do? Why are you in this class? What do you hope to get out of it?)

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Introduce your student/professional self to the class (what do you do? What do you want to do? Why are you in this class? What do you hope to get out of it?)

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As I mentioned, I'm a senior here at MNSU and will be graduating in the spring with a BA in literary studies. I hope to continue my education in graduate school, but first I'm taking a year off to focus on myself and will hopefully do some traveling and lots and lots of reading. I'm currently looking at different graduate programs, as I hope to become a professor of English. I love learning and I love to talk about literature to people that are willing to listen.
I'm in this class because I thought it would be an interesting course to take, being that my gender in literature knowledge is somewhat limited. It's really awesome that this class has a major focus on Africanfuturism, as I've heard the term but never explored it under any academic circumstances. I hope to further my knowledge of these concepts and I hope to come out of this class with a good idea of what Africanfuturism is. I'm very excited to dive into our readings for this semester!

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Connect the first two bullet points to your larger community/social/cultural contexts (what matters to you? What are the things that worry you? What is your home language? How/when/where do you use that language? Academic language? Social media language? How does class intersect with your passions, your worries, and your life?)

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Connect the first two bullet points to your larger community/social/cultural contexts (what matters to you? What are the things that worry you? What is your home language? How/when/where do you use that language? Academic language? Social media language? How does class intersect with your passions, your worries, and your life?)

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There are plenty of things in this world that matter to me. Nature matters to me, my family and friends matter to me, my environment matters to me, and literature matters to me. The future, however, worries me greatly. I worry that I will lose the things that matter to me and I worry about this planet's well-being. With the rise of white supremacy, climate change, fascism, and technology the future holds a great many grim uncertainties for humanity and the earth. Literature doesn't have a clear answer for us, but it does offer guidance. It does help us better understand the things that worry us the most and matter to us the most. This class can offer us some of that guidance through some of these ideas through the art of literature and through the concepts of gender and Africanfuturism.

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How and in what ways does what you read for Week 1 connect to the above bullets? How do the guiding questions and course goals intersect with your interests and why? 

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How and in what ways does what you read for Week 1 connect to the above bullets? How do the guiding questions and course goals intersect with your interests and why? 

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I've often thought that some of the best novels/series I've read that hold the greatest mirror to humanity and the world are often sci-fi and fantasy stories. Though my understanding and knowledge of Africanfuturism are rather limited, being that this is the first time I've ever studied it in an academic setting, I know it will function in similar way. I was struck by some of the things that Nnedi Okorafor said in "Africanfuturism Defined". Though the term Afrofuturism is not synonymous with Africanfuturism, they are similar in that "blacks on the continent and in the Black Diaspora are all connected by blood, spirit, history and future" (Okorafor 10). Where they differ is the focus is less on a western point of view and more focused on African culture, history, mythology etc. This provides a great perspective because the vast majority of the books that I've read that involve the black diaspora are highly affected by a western view point. When we break out of that point-of-view, we are shifting the focus to an un-tokenized perspective. I think this will provide us with a different literary perspective on the worries that I have and on the things that matter to me most. Engaging with different future perspectives is so important to our humanness and I hope to further my understanding of the future through Africanfuturism.