Nash, J. C. (2020). Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality. Meridians (Middletown, Conn.), 19(S1), 439–462. https://doi.org/10.1215/15366936-8566089

• This piece talks about love in relation to black feminism, a theme that is also dominant in Parable of the Sower. According to Nash, Black feminist love-politics has two parts that make it special. Firstly, it has a new idea about what the public sphere should be like. Secondly, it thinks about the future in a new way. It’s not like other political ideas and shows that there are different ways to think about things. Black feminism believes in love and love is important to create a good society. It takes love in a novel direction that I think I can use to expand my argument and also raise further discussion about romance.

Parrinder, Patrick. “Science Fiction as Romance.” Science Fiction, Routledge, 2003, pp. 68–87, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315015965-11.

• This piece talks about how despite the romance components of science fiction, it does not fall into the romance category. Parrinder compares the formulas and functions of realism and romance in science fiction. He argues that science fiction, when written as a deliberate romance, often prioritizes reader satisfaction over creating a believable world. Although science fiction falls under popular literature, its most distinctive forms have been created by authors who avoid taking shortcuts to appeal to the masses. Though I agree with some of the points he makes, I also wanted to show the opposing side of the discussion of romance in science fiction (cli-fi) in my essay and use it to further my argument.

Shu-Ching Chen. “Fear and Love in the Tide Country: Affect, Environment, and Encounters in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Concentric:Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, 2018, pp. 081–114, https://doi.org/10.6240/concentric.lit.201809_44(2).0004.

• This piece talks about love in the Hungry Tide. It defines love as feeling very strong emotions for people, places, objects, and things. Chen talks about the love relationship between Fokir and the environment, Piya and the environment and the relationship between Fokir and Piya. Chen also talks about how fear and love trigger the characters actions towards each other and their environment. This one of the few articles in my archive that discusses love in one of my close readings, the Hungry Tide. I plan on building my argument on the role of romance/love in Hungry Tide mostly from this article.

Taylor, Jesse Oak. “The Novel after Nature, Nature after the Novel: Richard Jefferies’s Anthropocene Romance.” Studies in the Novel, vol. 50, no. 1, 2018, pp. 108–33, https://doi.org/10.1353/sdn.2018.0006.

• I plan on making this article my central and background article. This article discusses how the rejection of the novel in favor of romance provides an opportunity to reconsider the history of novels in light of the Anthropocene, and to think about its chances of survival in the new era that is coming up. Apart from discussing the role of romance in cli-fi, it also talks about how that can affect the public’s reaction to the Anthropocene which is an important part of my argument.

Walker, Lisa. “Polar Bears and Evil Scientists: Romance, Comedy and Climate Change.” The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 3, no. 3, 2014, pp. 363–74, https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc.3.3.363_1.

•  This article suggests that popular culture, such as fiction, can be a useful tool for communicating about climate change. In particular, the genre of romantic comedy may be suitable for connecting a global issue to its local effects and making the issue relevant to readers. This article hits most of the points I plan on making in my essay. It talks about the role of romance in cli-fi and outside cli-fi and how it impacts public response to climate change, it is the brain behind my essay.

Research Question & Annotated bib

   Annotated Bibliography 

                Melson, A. (2023). Adapting the White Man’s Religion: The Creation and Evolution of Religion in Octavia’s Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The Midwest Quarterly (Pittsburg), 64(2), 209–136.

Earthseed sets the prime example of life and determination. Traditional christianity differs from earthseed because the main focus is rewarding or punishing people based on their sins. Meanwhile earthseed focuses on being a judgement free zone, “while earthseed god is present bur can be changed and is not there to judge all of humanity.” Octavia Butler highlights that god shouldn’t be a white, male figure which is why she portrays god as a shapeless form and encourages the audience to perceive god in their own, unique way. 

   Rezaei, Zahra, et al. “Freedom, Choice and Achieving Self-Realisation in the Dystopian World of Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, vol. 11, no. 1, 2022, pp. 47–53, https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.1p.47.

Earthseed is the focus of a new, transitioning religion which highlights discrimination and independence. “Human freedom and self realization” which is very much self explanatory, application of a new religion which practices freedom and self reflection is what builds Laurens character. She is very determined to change and prepare society with her religion, earthseed. Butler motivates her audience to focus on doing long term, beneficial acts to avoid an unhappy and unhealthy future. Throughout her novel she attempts to educate others that as society grows, generations, beliefs and ideas will also grow which will involve adequate change. 

                Jos, Philip H. “Fear and the Spiritual Realism of Octavia Butler’s Earthseed.” Utopian Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 2012, pp. 408–29, https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.23.2.0408.

The beginning states that Parable of The Sower, earthseed is not a tool but a “non dogmatic belief system” which is being open to new ideas and basically taking accountability for what is going on and “not claiming that you are always right” which is stated in this cite. It is also mentioned that Octavia Butler stated in an interview “religion is everywhere. There is no human societies without it, whether they acknowledge it or not.” Religion is complex that’s why the earthseed sometimes found to be “obscure, indecipherable, incoherent, and implausible.” The purpose is to go against and critique traditional christianity. 

                Achachelooei, Elham Mohammadi, and Carol Elizabeth Leon. “The Past and ‘Discontinuity in Religion’ in Octavia Butler’s Parables: A Feminist Theological Perspective.” Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association), vol. 68, no. 2, 2021, pp. 120–37, https://doi.org/10.1080/20512856.2021.1935492.

It is clearly stated that Lauren didn’t believe in her fathers traditional Christianity, she felt as if it didn’t prepare the community and world for the “what if’s”, it doesn’t involve creativity or change. She is a self educated female who believes in the earthseed and that it bring protection and possibility, “spiritual development.” This focuses on Lauren, her religious belief and the scientific idea behind it, the way the world and generations evolve within different perspectives. 

• Nilges, Mathias. ““We Need the Stars”: Change, Community, and the Absent Father in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.” Callaloo, vol. 32 no. 4, 2009, p. 1332-1352. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.0.0553.
  • This piece talks about the idea of “Fordism”, saying that rather than labeling Parable of the Sower as postmodern, but as post-Fordist instead. The author introduces the idea of Fordism as a mode of production that, for the very first time, invades, standardizes, and regulates every single aspect of someone’s life. Before mentioning this, however, the piece also discuses Butler’s concept of change.
• Blazan, Sladja. “”Something Beyond Pain”: Race, Gender, and Hyperempathy in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Gender Forum, no. 82, 2022, pp. 34. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/something-beyond-pain-race-gender-hyperempathy/docview/2764532780/se-2.
  • This piece talks mostly talks about Lauren Oya Olamina, the protagonist of Parable of the Sower, and her hyperempathy. Specifically, how Butler’s idea of feminist reconsiderations of empathy raises questions about “failures” in the collective consciousness and demonstrate how speculative fiction can address the violence of liberal conceptions under radical capitalism.
• Allen, Marlene D. “Octavia Butler’s Parable Novels and the “Boomerang” of African American History.” Callaloo, vol. 32 no. 4, 2009, p. 1353-1365. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.0.0541.
  • This piece makes note to tell it’s audience that Butler’s tales teach her readers about life lessons, human history, and, in the words of the article, many pitfalls that continually seem to ensnare the human species. It also mentions how Butler insistently incorporates identifiable African American histories within her writings, regardless of the fact that her pieces may either be set in the future or on entirely different planets, and that she uses the creative possibilities within science fiction to portray African American history in completely new and original ways.
• Dubey, Madhu. “Folk and Urban Communities in African-American Women’s Fiction: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Studies in American Fiction, vol. 27 no. 1, 1999, p. 103-128. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/saf.1999.0017.
  • In this piece, it mentions that Parable of the Sower exposes the hollowness and duplicity of recent (within the period this piece was written in) American ideologies or urban development, using the story’s uncannily possible future to point out that America has become, in the words of the piece, a “consumption artifact” that has fallen to a unstable urban order founded on economic and racial inequalities.
• Theiss, Derek. “Care Work, Age, and Culture in Butler’s Parable Series.” Femspec, vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 63-99,208. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/care-work-age-culture-butlers-parable-series/docview/1726394732/se-2.
  • This piece talks about age and class, specifically Lauren’s age when she founded her community, and that these differently aged relationships in this community are a mark of diversity, which is a social imperative during the times of Parable of the Sower. It also brings up Earthseed, the religion that Lauren found, and how it’s motto “God is Change” opens, in the words of the piece, critical, fluid, and anti-realist spaces for challenging problematic issues of race and class.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Moreno, Micah. “Survival by any means: Race and gender, passing and performance in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and parable of the talents.” Human Contradictions in Octavia E. Butler’s Work, 22 Nov. 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46625-1_11

This piece criticizes how most dystopian fiction uses metaphors and analogies to deal with race/gender and gender/racial inequalities and shows how Butler directly tackles these issues. Butler’s lack of metaphors allows her to explore/compare how it impacts the past, present, and future of both the audience and the main character(s).

1. Clausen, Daniel D. “Cli-Fi Georgic and Grassroots Mutual Aid in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Western American Literature, vol. 56 no. 3, 2021, p. 269-286. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/wal.2021.0040.

Clausen describes what new aspects Parable of the Sower offers to the genre of dystopia fiction and how it differs from other novels in its genre. Mainly how Parable focuses on mutual community aid, agricultural economy, and information rather than the individualist mentality taken by other dystopian novel authors and their main characters.

1. Lea, Susan G. “Seeing beyond sameness: Using the giver to challenge colorblind ideology.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 37, no. 1, 2006, pp. 51–67, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-005-9454-2.

Lea discusses how Lowry’s choice to depict the world of The Giver in black and white commentates on the actual harm colorblind ideology brings to people of color. In an effort to create sameness – which would supposedly create equality – the dominant force aka the Elders model the “perfect” human after themselves; cisgender, caucasian with Eurocentric features. They insist this “perfect person” doesn’t see race but in reality, it is erasing almost all aspects of people of color and implying that they are “wrong” for not complying with sameness.

1. Arnone, Chris M. “Why Are Dystopian Books So White?” Book Riot, 6 July 2023, https://bookriot.com/why-are-dystopian-books-so-white/. Accessed 16 Nov. 2023. 

This article discusses the phenomenon of dystopian fiction’s severe lack of non-white protagonists and how what is considered dystopian to white audiences is a constant reality for many people of color. It also talks about how – due to their white privilege – white audiences have the luxury of using these books as escapism or putting an emotional distance between them and the work, unlike people of color.

1. Hintz, Carrie, et al. Contemporary Dystopian Fiction for Young Adults: Brave New Teenagers. Routledge, 2015. 

Hintz points out the implications given by dystopian fiction that don’t divulge into race. Most often it is implied that people of color don’t exist in the pursuit of equality and sameness and in The Giver’s case, perpetuates the stereotype that racial minorities want to be white. Both uphold white privilege in what is supposed to be a utopia for all.