Is the future ‘real’? Can it be made ‘real’? The best answer in these best of all possible postnormal times cannot be black or white.

What is futures studies? Quite simply, it is the systematic and scholarly exploration of alternative futures.

How can the characteristics by which we even recognise a city be pinned down? Cities are many things to many people. African cities are not like cities in Asia. European cities are unlike American cities.

The typhoon warnings had been going on for days. But the people of Bacolod City seemed to be doing their business as usual although the day was far from normal.

Like a film, Afrofuturism itself began in sound – music. To this day, it still remains a staple of many black musicians, even if not as overt as in the case of Sun Ra.

Exotica has its uses. There was a time when Muslim fashion was seen as exotic: Asian women with their colourful scarfs, Arab women with their vibrant headgear, the African women with flamboyant turbans. Not anymore.

The opening of the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World at the British Museum in October 2018, prompted a public outpouring of delight in the media.