Black Panther

 Jorge Serrano has arranged an interesting collection of essays to dissect the character, the storyline, and the imagery of Wakanda in Ryan Coogler's box-office hit, Black Panther (2018).

"Black Panther: Wakandan 'Civitas' and Panthering Futurity" addresses both the commercial and aca­demic aspects of Afrofuturism and the Black Panther narrative. It describes the Panther genre as "an obtainable ideal humanism" and places the Panther within the African worldview. The text's three seg­ments: reconfiguring, visualization and time, are well outlined and defined, and allow us to understand how African Americans, past and present, crafted images of utopia.

History, anthropology, sociology, and psychology stand out in the key analysis of the key figures, con­cepts, and locations as the contributors consider the treatment of gender, concepts of utopia, colonial­ism and colonization. Thinkers like W.E.B. DuBois, Cheikh Anta Diop, and John Henrik Clarke play a role in the methodology. Additionally, the authors ask questions about African and African American aesthetics, from the use of language, music, colors and mannerisms.

The duality between the casual and the academic reader is the most striking aspect of the work. Most of the articles are geared toward academics and are often a lesson in Africana Studies that teaches us how to apply what we have learned in our analysis. However, there are enough pieces for general readers that they too will find something important and powerful in each chapter.

Dr. Leslie Wilson

Professor, History, Montclair State University