Diana Adesola Mafe is an associate professor of English at Denison University. Her newest book is called Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before: Subversive Portrayals in Speculative Film and TV (University of Texas Press, 2018). Writing for fans as well as scholars, Professor Mafe looks at representations of black womanhood and girlhood in American and British speculative film and television, including 28 Days Later, AVP: Alien vs. Predator, Children of Men, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Firefly, and Doctor Who: Series 3. Each of these has a subversive black female character in its main cast, and Mafe draws on critical race, postcolonial, and gender theories to explore each film and television show, placing the black female characters at the center of the analysis and demonstrating their agency.

The first full study of black female characters in speculative film and television, Where No Black Woman Has Gone Before shows why heroines such as Lex in AVP and Zoë in Firefly are inspiring a generation of fans, just as Lt. Uhura did on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise on Star Trek over 50 years ago.