Presented by Dr. Belinda Deenen Wallace,
University of New Mexico

Moderated by Dr. Finnie Coleman,
University of New Mexico

The moment when Hippolyta says her name, is the most powerful moment in HBOMAX’s hit series, Lovecraft Country. This moment of naming exemplifies Lovecraft Country’s preoccupation with African iconography and epistemologies. Dr. Wallace’s presentation, “Seeing Africa in Afrofuturism: Hippolyta, Naming, and Lovecraft Country,” explores the role of Hippolyta as an anti-racist/anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist superhero who, through the process of naming, unleashes her superpower and contests institutional racism that seeks to define Black bodies as threatening and unbelonging. Integral to Dr. Wallace’s discussion is an examination of Black women and their use of naming as a means to claim, validate, and internalize ancestral ways of knowing, thus positioning naming as a powerful site of knowledge, love, and action..