Alchemies of Blood and Afro–Diasporic Fiction Race, Kinship, and the Passion for Ontology

In thinking through conceptions of race, ethnicity, and materiality at work within both humanities research and popular culture, Nicole Simek asks how the figure of alchemy - that semi-scientific, semi-mystical search for gold and the elixir of long life - can help scholars address the epistemological and affective investments in blood, bloodlines, and genetics marking both academic and mainstream discourses. To answer this question, Simek examines neo-plantation and Afrofuturist narratives, Afropessimist interventions, museums and public memory projects, and direct-to-consumer genetic testing services in the French Caribbean and the United States. This comparative approach to cultural production helps pinpoint and better understand the intersections and divergences between scholarship trends and troubling features of a broader Zeitgeist.