Afrofuturism Event At Blockson Explores ‘Dark Enlightenment’ And AI Disinformation”

At a Temple University event, Dr. Reynaldo Anderson connects Afrofuturism to real-world threats from climate change, uninsurable property, and AI-driven disinformation.

Temple University’s Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection hosted a community launch for Afrofuturism and World Order by Dr. Reynaldo Anderson. The gathering, held at the Charles Blockson Collection on October 22, 2025, was framed as a celebration of scholarship and a working session on how ideas move into practice in Philadelphia. The flyer underscored the setting (Blockson, Sullivan Hall, 2–4 pm) and coalition (Africology, with support from the Afrocentric Collective). 

From Left to Right: Dr. Reynaldo Anderson, Dr. Diane Turner, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, and Dr. Eric Nzeribe

Dr. Molefi Kete Asante’s opening tributes placed Anderson’s work in an institutional context. He emphasized Blockson’s role as a long-standing research home and community venue, crediting Dr. Diane Turner and the team for consistent access and stewardship. 

Dr. Asante also situated Dr. Anderson within the field’s genealogy: a communications scholar who helped define Afrofuturism 2.0, organized landmark convenings (Berlin and Dakar), and advanced Temple’s reputation despite resistance. The department lauded him as a central voice whose work now anchors how Afrofuturism is taught and debated. 

Anderson’s talk linked cultural imagination to hard policy terrain. He outlined a world moving through three accelerating forces: technology, de-globalization, and climate while faulting leadership for failing to plan for impacts that are already reshaping daily life. 

He warned that parts of the United States are becoming difficult to insure and, in some places, uninsurable, a shift that can quickly erase household wealth. “There are states now… You already can’t get insurance for your home… So your property in certain parts of the country is going to be worthless,” he said, projecting “reverse migration” toward regions north of the Mason-Dixon line within roughly two decades. 

The climate frame widened to a global view: heat, water stress, and sea-level rise will force large-scale movement, which public discourse often mislabels as “illegal immigration” rather than climate migration. The point was practical, not abstract: families should think now about future location, water access, and regional resilience. 

A second through-line was information integrity. Anderson cited discussions at the United Nations that flagged a specific threat pattern: AI-assisted disinformation aimed at Black women, the most cohesive political base in many Black communities. 

This concern connects to FunTimes’ audience across churches, civic groups, and neighborhood networks that rely on trusted messengers.

A third theme was “ideas as infrastructure”. Anderson mapped contemporary U.S. political rhetoric onto the “Dark Enlightenment,” a cluster of accelerationist and anti-liberal ideas associated with Nick Land and others. He argued that this language surfaced around January 6 and continues to inform actors seeking to “burn it all down” rather than reform. 

The takeaway: culture wars are also theory wars, and communities benefit from knowing the intellectual sources shaping policy and media.

Throughout, speakers returned to Afrofuturism as a disciplined practice. It is a way to join heritage, foresight, and agency less a genre label than a planning stance that asks: what should families, institutions, and cities do next. The room’s energy came from this applied posture and the location itself: Blockson as an archive-in-action, where scholarship meets public life. 

What this means for Philadelphia

• Family security: Follow local insurance risk trends; review coverage and heat/flood exposure. Plan for resilient neighborhoods and buildings. 
• Information hygiene: Build women-led verification routines in churches and associations; treat viral content as suspect until checked. 
• Civic literacy on ideas: Recognize the ideological currents such as “Dark Enlightenment” that inform policy debates and online narratives. 
• Use the archive: Engage Blockson for research, inter-generational learning, and diaspora storytelling. 

Bottom line: The event framed Afrofuturism as a toolkit for near-term decisions on where to live, how to protect community information space, and how to read the ideas behind the headlines grounded in a Philadelphia institution built for that work. 

Dr. Eric John Nzeribe is the Publisher of FunTimes Magazine and has a demonstrated history of working in the publishing industry since 1992. His interests include using data to understand and solve social issues, narrative stories, digital marketing, community engagement, and online/print journalism features. Dr. Nzeribe is a social media and communication professional with certificates in Digital Media for Social Impact from the University of Pennsylvania, Digital Strategies for Business: Leading the Next-Generation Enterprise from Columbia University, and a Master of Science (MS) in Publication Management from Drexel University and a Doctorate in Business Administration from Temple University.