Black Queer Futures (BQF) in Real Time: Multidimensional Identity and Imaginative Media Practice

Abstract Black Queer Futures in Real Time: Multidimensional Identity and Imaginative Media Practice builds theory from cultural artifacts reflecting expressions of Black joy and resilience, rather than Black trauma. Drawing on Black feminist thought, I propose “Black dimensionality” as a generative term to explore the interlocking identities of Blackness and queerness. By centering Black queer performance, creativity, and epistemologies, this project explores how Blackness and queerness exist simultaneously within many physical bodies and spaces, as well as in their digital distillations. I use both empirical and non-empirical qualitative research paradigms: podcast style interviews, analysis of film making, and the generation of a historiography of Blackademics and Black popular culture. By thinking of Blackness and queerness as a tightly linked perspective, we may more effectively generate a multifaceted and nuanced understanding of Black life and our lived experiences. In turn, this knowledge can be productive in bridging scholarship and community, and creating a catalyst for diverse expressions of both individual and shared Black identity and cultural aesthetics