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Paper short abstract:

In this paper an interdisciplinary approach to African futurisms seeks to make sense of the concept while employing possible world semantics, decolonial anthropology and past-present-future relations. The concept of possible worlds is positioned in contrast to the separation of fiction and reality.

Paper long abstract:

Lewis’ (1968) manifests “[t]he most extreme (and provocative) position” (Zimmermann 2013) in the field of possible world semantics. He claims that there are multiple worlds equal in their existence compared to the one this abstract is written in and in no spaciotemporal relation to it, while all objects in one world are defined to be related spatially or temporally. Other logicians range in their definitions of the actual world, between optimistic accounts (Leibniz) as “the best possible world chosen” and therefore existing in contrast to the not chosen worlds, whose ontologies are argued, and pessimistic approaches (Schopenhauer) which describe the present (chosen) world as the worst of all cases.

What if we apply the concept of possible world semantics to a decolonial understanding of anthropology? What if we define the planet Earth as a vessel consisting of adjacent possible worlds all ontologically valid as really existing contemporaneously? What if a decolonial understanding of anthropology would equal a spaciotemporal shift from a past-present relation ((post-)colonial understanding) to a present-future relation (decolonial understanding) and a broadening of possible worlds in contrast to an artificial separation of reality and fiction?

What if those worlds were indeed in spatial and temporal relation to each other?

What meaning would those applications mean for an interdisciplinary sense making of African futurisms (Okorafor)?

How could Okorafor's and other African futuristic literature be read and analyzed through the lense of possible world semantics?