Lou Cornum
Lou Cornum is a writer, editor, and academic born in Arizona and based in New York City. Their work traverses Native American Studies, science fiction, cultural studies, and gay communism. They are currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU and part of Pinko magazine. Recent writing can be found in the collection Mommy Wound and at Social Text Online.
Collected Work
“Seizing the Alterity of Futures: Toward a Philosophy of History across Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism”
This article contextualizes growing interest in futurity and minoritarian futures as connected to movements in speculative fiction, particularly Afrofuturism and Indigenous futurism, and the ways in which this genre reimagines both history and futures. These developments are read through two groundbreaking anthologies—Dark Matter, a collection of speculative fiction from the African diaspora, and Walking the Clouds, a collection of Indigenous science fiction—and the social conditions of their publication. Using the work of Walter Benjamin and his writing against the notion of progress in history, the article posits the shared grounds for a philosophy of history that disrupts the singular future of speculation-driven capitalism with alternative forms of speculative imagination.
“Who Belongs to the Land?”
“If the land is not given back, it will soon be the sea.” An essay on camps, blockades, and Indigenous models of remaking the world in the face of climate collapse, for Triple Canopy.