Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018) is not only a billion-dollar superhero film but also a profound examination of Black life in the global diaspora. Given this, a collection of essays on the film was inevitable. The essays White and Ritzenhoff gathered are not only impressive but also surpass expectations in considering Black Panther and its importance to new conceptions of Blackness in US culture. The essays survey a wide range of topics, connecting Coogler’s film to such subjects as neoliberalism, Black lesbianism, Afrofuturism, action aesthetics, Black manhood, colonialism, and the cosmopolitan. What binds the essays together, however, is the commitment to exploring the film in its historical and cinematic contexts, tying it to films such as Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and Peter Farrelly's The Green Book (both also 2018) but also paying close attention to cinematic production and industry issues. The essays gathered in this collection speak to one another fluently despite their wide variety of topics, making the collection cohere in insightful ways. This collection is required reading for anyone seeking to understand the enduring importance of Black Panther to understanding Blackness in US culture. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Choice Reviews

This remarkable collection examines the complexities, power and significance of Black Panther from a wide range of highly pertinent perspectives, revealing the film's importance as both a piece of cinema and as a pointed intervention into cultural, social and political histories of representation. The editors have brought together a rich collection of rigorous and illuminating contributions, making this the key reference work on this ground-breaking film.

Lisa Purse, University of Reading

A rich and enticing book that offers multiple perspectives on a genuine cultural phenomenon. A must read for anyone interested in Black Panther and the politics of contemporary US popular culture.

Hervé Mayer, Paul Valéry University Montpellier 3

Featuring reflections by filmmakers, artists, fans, and scholars across disciplines and around the world, this book is more than just a resource for a critical reading of Black Panther; it is a veritable tome of the different threads present within this ever-evolving film. Superhero and fantasy films have an important role in producing and commenting on culture: they take us out of reality while helping us critically dissect the patterns of reality. This phenomenon is complicated but necessary, and each chapter methodically guides the reader through a different facet of media, identity, history, and reception, encouraging them to return to the film to watch it again with new knowledge and a new perspective.

Charisse L'Pree Corsbie-Massay, Syracuse University

Evidence that Black Panther hit a raw nerve rests in this serious treatment of the copious topics instigated by this afrofuturistic superhero film. Praise for this collection of essays for the far-reaching implications the authors suggest for the study of Black Panther as an interrogation of the multibillion dollar industry that produced it and the state of the human condition for which the film serves as window and mirror. Afrofuturism in Black Panther: Gender, Identity, and the Re-making of Blackness explores why Black Panther is not merely an important film that you have to see just because it seemingly replaces the Hollywood white superhero with a black superhero, but why it’s a film we want to see as it centers black governance, black feminism and black culture within the convergence of global politics and technology in the context of real histories of enslavement, colonization, apartheid, racism and discrimination. The essays invoke the persistence of vision of black filmmakers, writers, actors, designers, scholars and spectators who expertly employ the master’s tools to re-imagine. An essential text for the study of Black Panther.

Roxana Walker-Canton, University of Florida

Renée T. White’s & Karen A. Ritzenhoff’s book is a tour-de-force about the highly popular Marvel comic and its film adaptation. The impressive assemblage of contributors boldly theorizes concepts of Black identity, queer erasure, counter-colonialism dignity, Afrofuturism, and Black utopian visions that are celebratory and critical. This work is a page-turning essential read for academics, popular culture, and science fiction enthusiasts who seek to have their assumptions and principles about Black Panther challenged while exploring new historical, symbolic, and pedagogical frameworks on various dimensions of Blackness.

Alexia Hudson-Ward, Associate Director of Research and Learning, MIT Libraries