An Afrofuturism-based timeline, 1998 - 2016

What follows is a partial timeline of activities, events, and publications related to afrofuturism, technology, and digital humanities that I've traced over the years.

1998: Alondra Nelson creates Afrofuturism listserv.
1998: Science fiction writer Nalo Hopkinson publishes Brown Girl in the Ring.
1998: Colson Whitehead publishes  The Intuitionist on Dec. 29. Most bibliographies cite 1999 as pub date.
1998: Octavia Butler publishes Parable of the Talents.
1998: Detective novelist Walter Mosley publishes Blue Light, a science fiction novel. 
1998: OutKast releases Aquemini.  
1999: Octavia Butler receives Nebula Award for Best Novel for Parable of the Talents.
2000: Nalo Hopkinson publishes Midnight Robber.
2000: Sheree R. Thomas edits Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora.
2001: Colson Whitehead publishes John Henry Days.
2001: BlackPlanet, an African American community web-site is launched, on September 1. 
2002: Alondra Nelson edits Afrofuturism: A Special Issue of Social Text/
2004: Anna Everett organizes AfroGeeks (race and technology conference) on May 7 - 8.
2004: Dark Matter: Reading the Bones ed. by  Sheree R. Thomas published.
2004: Scratch releases Embodiment of Instrumentation. 
2005: Anna Everett organizes AfroGeeks conference on May 19 - 21.
2005: Reginald Hudlin and John Romita, Jr. published Marvel's Black Panther comic book.
2005: Octaiva Butler publishes Fledgling.
2006: Octavia Butler dies on February 24.
2007: Seed to Harvest by Octavia Butler, is published posthumously.
2007: Anna Everett and Amber Wallace edit AfroGEEKS: Beyond the Digital Divide.
2008: Ta-Nehisi Coates begins blogging on The Atlantic site on August 4.
2009: Anna Everett publishes Digital Diaspora: A Race for Cyberspace.
2010: Rebecca Skloot publishes The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
2010: Marvel and BET produce Black Panther animation. 
2010: Janelle Monae releases The ArchAndroid.
2011: Adam J. Banks publishes Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age.
2011: Alondra Nelson publishes Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination.
2011: Colson Whitehead publishes Zone One.
2012: Mark Anthony Neal organizes "Black Thought 2.0" symposium at Duke University.
2012: Colson Whitehead publishes  "A Psychotronic Childhood Learning from B-movies."
2012: Adam Banks launches Kuumba Digital Literacy Collective, facebook group to discuss technology. 
2013: Alondra Nelson is keynote speaker at "Alien Bodies" conference, held at Emory University.
2013: Janelle Monae releases The Electric Lady.
2014: Corrie Claiborne and Samuel Livingston organize "Mapping the Future by Mining the Past" teaching, learning tech institute, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, at Morehouse College.
2015: Candice Love Jackson organizes Digital Humanities Workshop, sponsored by the Mellon Foundation, at Tougaloo College.
2015: Tananarive Due publishes Ghost Summer: Stories.
2015: Reynaldo Anderson and Charles E. Jones edit Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness.
2016: National Assoc. of Black Journalists organizes the #BlackTwitter Conference at Columbia University.
2016: YouTube sponsors #YouTubeBlack Social Summer in Los Angeles.
2016: Alondra Nelson publishes The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome.
2016: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze, Laura Martina release Marvel's Black Panther #1.
2016: Digital Blackness Conference is held at Rutgers University.
2016: André M. Carrington publishes Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction.
2016: Kim Gallon and Angel David Nieves organize "Space & Place in Africana/Black Studies" NEH institute at Purdue University.
2016: Dana Williams organizes "Seshat: A Digital Humanities Initiative in Literature, Language, and Criticism" NEH-funded project at Howard University. 

Related: 
• Afrofuturism
• Timelines