Reading + Artist Talk: Justin Allen

Justin shared new work that imagined a future United States in which Black and Native people have received reparations. The evening included live readings with multilingual projections in English and Hatnahans, a conlang (constructed language), music, and a Q&A.

"[S]peculative fiction presents an opportunity for me, a Black writer, to envision Blackness however I would like while living in a world in which Black identity is confined to stringent categorizations, stereotypes, and expectations--narrow perceptions that are both stifling and dangerous. To imagine a future says, firstly, that we will be in the future despite everything we are experiencing now. But it also asserts that we can and will be who we want to be, not who society tells us we can or should be.” – Justin Allen