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Re-imagining the Past to Make a Future: Afrofuturism in Rita Dove's <i>Sonata Mulattica</i>

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Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Abstract

The term ‘Afrofuturism' was coined by the cultural critic, Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future," describing music, art and literature that contains Afro-centric elements of fantasy, magical realism, and historical fiction. Afrofuturism is an aesthetic mode that embraces various genres and media that share an interest in imagining black futures derived from past Afro-diasporic experiences. By imagining the future in a black context, Afrofuturism aims to provide an escape from the oppressive past and present ailments through music, visual art, and literature. The US poet laureate Rita Dove's Sonata Mulattica (2009) is about the life of George Bridgetower (1778–1860), an Afro-Polish prodigy violinist who gave the first performance of Beethoven's ninth violin sonata. After dedicating it to Bridgetower, Beethoven destroyed the dedication thereby making the young violinist insignificant and eventually forgotten. It was Dove's Sonata Mulattica that brought fame to Bridgetower in the world of music and is revived in modern productions based on Dove's book. This paper attempts to examine Afrofuturism, as a cultural aesthetic movement, in Dove's Sonata Mulattica, to highlight how the intersection of re-imagining historical events and reimaging black aesthetic is able to liberate the black race by creating a future that transfers them into a level of refinement. The paper also makes use of theories of imagination and philosophical aesthetics with a particular focus on the role of imagination in creativity through engagement with notions of Afrofuturist artworks in order to construct a utopic landscape.

DOI

10.21608/cse.2024.275807.1152

Keywords

Bridgetower, imagination, Black, Utopia, aesthetics, music, racism

Authors

First Name

Hala

Last Name

Darwish

MiddleName

Yousry

Affiliation

English Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University

Email

haladrwsh@yahoo.com

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Orcid

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Volume

2024

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

47584

Issue Date

2024-07-01

Receive Date

2024-03-09

Publish Date

2024-07-01

Page Start

40

Page End

57

Print ISSN

0575-1624

Online ISSN

2682-2504

Link

https://cse.journals.ekb.eg/article_354021.html

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https://cse.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=354021

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5

Type

Original Article

Type Code

738

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Cairo Studies in English

Publication Link

https://cse.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Re-imagining the Past to Make a Future: Afrofuturism in Rita Dove's <i>Sonata Mulattica</i>

Details

Type

Article

Created At

24 Dec 2024