MLA Proseminar: Science Fiction and Octavia Butler

Format
Online
Subject Area
Course Number
ENGL 570 640
Course Code
ENGL570640
Course Key
75893
Day(s)
Wednesday
Time
5:15pm-7:55pm
Instructor
Primary Program
Course Description
This course covers key novels, short stories, and essays by the great African American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, with a focus on her experiments with genre and gender-bending shape-shifters. Across texts that span her entire career, from the 1960s to 2006, Butler pursued the themes of time travel, slavery, biotechnology, ecological catastrophe, and urban survival. Novels will include selections from her Patternmaster, Xenogenesis, and Parable series, as well as the neo-slave narrative Kindred and her vampire novel Fledgling. Texts will be situated within the scholarly fields of Afrofuturism, Black speculative fiction, Black feminisms, animal studies, and climate fiction.
Crosslistings
AFRC570640
GSWS570640
Subject Area Vocab