Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum sagittis mi eu elementum malesuada. Maecenas arcu felis, suscipit vitae mi in, posuere ultricies nunc. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut ante velit, condimentum eget erat a, suscipit porttitor nisl. Pellentesque in semper nunc
Octavia Butler’s work focuses on overturning reifying notions of human purity by disrupting founding narratives that reiterate systems of oppression under Western colonialism. In her novel Wild Seed and in her later Xenogenesis trilogy, Lilith’s Brood, Butler works to upend dominant European conceptions of the human which are grounded in dualistic thinking and revolve around a series of hierarchical binaries that include: black vs white, free vs unfree, civilized vs savage, Christian vs heathen, innocent vs guilty, purity vs corruption, miscegenation and contamination.
At the level of mythos, I argue that Butler disrupts dualistic ways of thinking via her revisionist, neogenesis myth that traverses both series. Through the demonized figure of Lilith, the first wife of Adam—and the other face of Eve—from the Hebraic tradition, Butler develops a third elemental and creolizing figure that she injects with essential concepts from African cosmologies in order to posit new life for humans and nonhumans and for what we now think of as nature.Â
Presented by the Literary Studies department at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts.
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Dr. Bernabé Mendoza obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University in 2020. Dr. Mendoza is a Black Studies scholar focusing on the visionary work of
Octavia E. Butler and other Black feminist science fiction and fantasy writers who disrupt entrenched narratives based on a duality of human nature. Dr. Mendoza has a strong grounding in critical race theory, literary theory, gender and sexuality studies, as well as comprehensive training in feminist philosophy.Â
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