Collective grief, liminality, and redressive action in Black fans' embodied engagement with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Marvel's 2022 blockbuster film Black Panther : Wakanda Forever was marked by the death of lead actor Chadwick Boseman in 2020, resulting in the cinematic death of his character T'Challa. For US Black audiences, the imagined nation of Wakanda served as more than entertainment, but a diasporic “home” at a time of deepening anti‐Blackness and Black grief. Based on ethnographic research and semiotic analysis of online and offline fandom, this article argues that Black audiences co‐constructed meaning and redressive, liminal spaces of Wakanda Forever in ways that affirmed Black lifeways, strengthened diasporic connections, and allowed for communal expressions of grief.
DOI: 10.1111/jola.70057
Author: Marissa Smith Morgan
Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,400
OpenAlex ID: W7160123596