New Books Network Justin L. Mann, "Breaking the World: Black Insecurity and the Horizons of Speculation" (Duke UP, 2026)
Jan 29, 2026
Justin L. Mann, assistant professor of English at Northwestern and author of Breaking the World, studies Black speculative fiction and critical security. He discusses how SF shaped Reagan-era securitization, contrasts state futurism with Black insecurity, reads Butler and Jemisin for world-breaking practices, and connects biosecurity, militarization, and climate narratives to racialized vulnerability.
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SF Authors Advised Cold War Security
- Justin L. Mann discovered Reagan-era ties between science fiction writers and security policy while listening to StarTalk and researching Max Brooks and the CAC NSP.
- He found Black authors like Octavia Butler absent from those advisory circles despite living nearby and writing critically about survival and nuclear war.
Security Is Built, Not Neutral
- Mann defines securitization as the state's building of infrastructures, ideas, and affects that promise safety while producing inequality.
- He contrasts this with 'Black insecurity,' a skeptical Black speculative stance that questions safety's desirability and reveals its racialized costs.
Butler's LA Times Letter On Civil Defense
- Mann recounts finding Octavia Butler's annotated LA Times op-ed and her 1981 letter critiquing Edward Teller's civil defense logic.
- Butler emphasized that nuclear survival plans would disproportionately harm poor and racialized people through long-term environmental collapse.
