Episode 2 | "Beyond the Genre of Man: Black Speculative Being in Sinners" | Dr. Bernie Mendoza

At the end of Sinners, both twins end up beyond the human — one a vampire, one a spirit. Dr. Bernie Mendoza, Lecturer in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College, thinks that's the point. Drawing on philosopher Sylvia Wynter and novelist Octavia Butler, he argues that Black speculative fiction has always used monsters, spirits, and shapeshifters to imagine ways of being that Western culture refuses to recognize. This episode asks a deceptively simple question: what does it mean that the two Black men at the center of this film survive — but not as humans? This episode is hosted by Dr. Brittney Frantece, Thurgood Marshall Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College, and is produced by the Dartmouth Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life in collaboration with the Dartmouth Media Production Group.