In collaboration with the Department of Theater and Dance and Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Music at UC Santa Barbara, the MultiCultural Center is hosting a panel discussion entitled “Black Star Lines: Afrofuturism Across the Black Cultural Cosmos” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, 2016, in the MCC Theater.

The panel will explore the future artistic expressions of black aesthetics, also known as Afrofuturism. 

Afrofuturism is expanding, revealing a universe that reaches beyond fiction and includes the orbits of many planets including history, politics and philosophy.

The four scholars will take the audience “black to the future” on a journey to the constellations of music, visual art, theater, literature and many other stars along the way.

Coming from a distinct disciplines of the arts and humanities, the scholars will present the futuristic, artistic aesthetics of Blackness.

Panelists include Dr. Idris Goodwin, assistant professor of theater and dance at Colorado College; Dr. George Lipsitz, professor of black studies and sociology at UCSB; Dr. Stephanie Batiste, associate professor of English and black studies at UCSB; and Alex Blue V, doctoral student of ethnomusicology at UCSB.

A reception with existential turntablist DJ Frane will follow, improvising an audio-spirutal expedition through the space-funk diaspora.

— Carol Dinh is the publicist and marketing coordinator for the UCSB MultiCultural Center.