Human Contradictions in Octavia E. Butler's Work

by Martin Japtok, Jerry Rafiki Jenkins

Overview

Human Contradictions in Octavia Butler’s Work continues the critical discussions of Butler’s work by offering a variety of theoretical perspectives and approaches to Butler’s text. This collection contains original essays that engage Butler’s series (Seed to Harvest, Xenogenesis, Parables), her stand-alone novels (Kindred and Fledgling), and her short stories. The essays explore new facets of Butler’s work and its relevance to philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, ethnic studies, women’s studies, religious studies, American studies, and U.S. history. The volume establishes new ways of reading this seminal figure in African American literature, science fiction, feminism, and popular culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030466244
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	07/23/2020
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Martin Japtok is Associate Professor of English at Palomar College, USA, and has authored Growing Up Ethnic: Nationalism and the Bildungsroman in African American and Jewish American Fiction (2005), edited Postcolonial Perspectives on Women Writers from Africa, the Caribbean, and the U.S. (2003), and co-edited Authentic Blackness/”Real” Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture (2011) .

Jerry Rafiki Jenkins is Professor of English at Palomar College, USA, and is the author of The Paradox of Blackness in African American Vampire Fiction (2019) and co-editor of Authentic Blackness/”Real” Blackness: Essays on the Meaning of Blackness in Literature and Culture (2011).

Table of Contents

Introduction Jerry Rafiki Jenkins and Martin Japtok.- The Somatopic Black Female Body within Archipelagic Space and Time in Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed Regina Hamilton.- Contextualizing Escape in the Neo-Slave Narratives of Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Sherley Anne Williams’ Dessa Rose Allison E. Francis.- (Dis)abling Normalcy: Octavia Butler’s Critique of Disability in Kindred Hillary Weiss.- Transhumanism, Posthumanism, and the Human in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Jerry Rafiki Jenkins.- “But all we really know that we have is the flesh”: Body-Knowledge, Mulatto Genomics, and Reproductive Futurities in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis K.A. Vado.- “Your Body Has Made a Different Choice”: Troubling Issues of Consent in Dawn Joshua Yu Burnett.- What Is “Love”? —Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” Martin Japtok.- “Accept the Risk”: Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” and Institutional Power Beth A. McCoy.- “Learn or Die”: Survival and Anarchy in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower Stefanie Dunning.- Survival by any Means: Race and Gender, Passing and Performance in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents Micah Moreno.- Beyond Science Fiction: Genre in Kindred and Butler’s Short Stories Heather Duerre Humann.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Human Contradictions in Octavia E. Butler’s Work is a solid and stimulating addition to Butler scholarship. The collection covers a wide range of concerns that continue to speak to the times we live in. Through a variety of approaches, it engages with the fullness of Butler’s work and shows how it remains useful for understanding and providing solutions to local and global problems. The volume has an interdisciplinary appeal, and will be of interest to both established and new scholars of different disciplines.” (Raffaella Baccolini, University of Bologna, Italy)

Editorial Reviews

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From the Publisher