Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler
- Editor: Tarshia L. Stanley
- Pages: 176
- Published: 2019
- ISBN: 9781603294157 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603294591 (Hardcover)
Teaching Literature Book Award Winner
—Idaho State University
“[T]his volume presents a wide-ranging and generous framework for teaching the works of Octavia E. Butler in a variety of contexts and educational levels, and I thoroughly recommend it.”
—Science Fiction Studies
Octavia E. Butler’s works of science fiction invite readers to consider the structures of power in society and to ask what it means to be human. Butler addresses social justice issues such as poverty, racism, and violence against women and connects the history of slavery in the United States with speculation on a biologically altered future world.
The first section of this volume, “Materials,” lists secondary sources and interviews with Butler and suggests texts that instructors might pair with her works. Essays in the second section, “Approaches,” situate Butler in science fiction, modernism, and Afrofuturism and provide interdisciplinary approaches from political science, philosophy, art, and digital humanities. The contributors present strategies for teaching Butler in literature courses as well as courses designed for adult learners, preservice teachers, and students at historically black colleges and universities.
Idaho State University Teaching Literature Book Award Winner
PART ONE: MATERIALS
Butler’s Major Works with Original Publication Dates (3)
Courses and Contexts (3)
Interviews (4)
Secondary Sources (5)
Texts Taught in Conjunction with Butler’s Works (6)
PART TWO: APPROACHES
Introduction (9)
Literary and Rhetorical Approaches
Teaching Dawn in an Introductory Course on Modern(ist) Literature—with a Gothic Inflection (17)
Historicizing the Future: Teaching Historical Consciousness in Butler’s Fiction (24)
Teaching Butler in a Course on Colonialism and Science Fiction (29)
Teaching Fledgling as a Narrative of Love and Power (34)
Keeping the Science in Science Fiction: Teaching Butler in an Interdisciplinary Writing Course (40)
“My Books Will Be Read by Millions of People!”: The LaGuardia Community College Octavia E. Butler Project on Wikipedia (45)
Disciplinary Strategies and Innovations
The Politics of Living Together: Butler’s Short Stories and Teaching Political Philosophy (52)
Unchained: Using Butler to Upend How We Teach the History of Slavery (58)
For Adults Only: A Competency-Based Approach to Teaching Butler’s Wild Seed (63)
Parable of the Sower and Antiracist Pedagogy: Reading Butler with Preservice Teachers (69)
Reading Whiteness in Kindred to Teach Transnational Pedagogy (74)
Drawing the Oankali: Imagining Race, Gender, and the Posthuman in Butler’s Dawn (81)
Social Justice and Social Change
Ecocritical Ideas and Butler’s “Bloodchild” and Parable of the Sower (90)
Teaching the Social Construction of Disability through the Parable series, Lilith’s Brood, and Seed to Harvest (97)
Clay’s Ark: Teaching Butler’s Vision beyond Liberal Consent (103)
Intergroup Dialogue and Difficult Conversations: Teaching Butler at a Private, Christian, Predominantly White Institution (109)
Butler as Feminist Philosopher: A Care-Ethics Approach to Teaching Kindred and Dawn (117)
The Allegory of Shori’s Cave: Teaching Fledgling as the Science Fiction of Racism (124)
The Aesthetics of Afrofuturism
Teaching Parable of the Sower through Afrofuturism (129)
Teaching Butler’s “Bloodchild” and the Tenets of Afrofuturism (136)
Teaching Afrofuturistic Thought Leadership in Butler’s Fiction (141)
Notes on Contributors (149)
Survey Participants (153)
Works Cited (157)
“These essays not only demonstrate how to teach Butler but also do a fine job of modeling how to teach literature in general.”
—Jeffrey Allen Tucker, University of Rochester
