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OCTAVIA BUTLER NOW! READING RACE, GENDER, AND CRITICAL FUTURES

FALL 2021 ENGL A490.001 | Great Figures TR 3:30-4:45 | Location TBA Loyola University New Orleans

Prof. R. Scott Heath [email protected]

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OCTAVIA BUTLER NOW! READING RACE, GENDER, AND CRITICAL FUTURES Dr. R. S. Heath

ENGL A490.001 (Great Figures: Octavia Butler) Office: 316 Bobet Hall Fall 2021 Hours: MW by appointment TR 3:30-4:45P Email: [email protected]

Course Description

Octavia E. Butler might be called the patron saint of black science fiction, a literary genre sometimes classified as Afrofuturism. Recently, her likeness and her ideas—especially those conveyed in her novels and Parable of the Sower—have been trending publicly, proving stunningly resonant and possibly prophetic in these uncertain times. For centuries, black writers and artists have theorized and continually revised aesthetic modes for the representation of American subjectivity, especially with regard to and in response to conventions of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality in the United States. Presently, the country is being met with a set of intersecting, interconnected crises—a global health emergency, an economic collapse, a social upheaval, a climate firestorm, a political spiral—that have required our isolation while simultaneously inspiring monumental collective action. The disproportionately distributed impact of these overlapping catastrophes has driven ongoing conflicts emergent along reliable fault lines of blackness and Americanness, difference and belonging. Octavia Butler operates as a metacritic, writing herself into a framework not designed with her in mind, transforming the mechanism while intimately illustrating and explicating our own alienation. In this single-author, seminar-style course we will examine Butler’s long fiction in its entirety—along with a cache of screen media—tracing its continuity of themes and discerning its usefulness in our current cultural context. As a blatantly speculative project, we will read her near-future work with a hard parallel to the potential traumas and possible solutions of today.

Required Texts

Octavia E. Butler, Kindred Octavia Butler, Lilith’s Brood (Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago) Octavia Butler, Seed to Harvest (, Mind of My Mind, Clay’s Ark, and ) Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents Octavia Butler,

Each assignment from these novels will be specifically coupled with at least one other work proposing social and historical context for our readings and critiques. These additional required texts include films, music, and literature made accessible online. This material has been selected to situate our discussions of black speculative culture.

Recommended Texts

Octavia E. Butler, Bloodchild and Other Stories Octavia E. Butler, Survivor