Exploring Afrofuturism through Octavia E. Butler's Vision

Delve into Afrofuturism through the lens of Octavia E. Butler's "Parable of the Sower'' challenging hegemonic narratives of race and amplifying voices from the periphery to shape a transformative and collective future for justice and survival.

What is Afrofuturism? What are the teachings found in Octavia E. Butler's "The parable of the Sower"? Can this science fiction tale inspire new futures? What will this future look like? These are the main inputs we will be exploring and working together. The goal of this session is to build a ‘Tale of tomorrow’ based on Afrofuturism as a feminist and post/colonial impulse. We will use AI generated images integrating people of color and other subjectivities as actors in our emancipatory narratives for the future. We will rediscover the power of collective epistemology and interaction for building feminist speculative futures.

Literacy: Butler, O. E. (2000). Parable of the sower : the Parable Series: Book One / Octavia E. Butler. Open Road. Jarrett, G. A., Jarrett, G. A., & Jarrett, G. A. (2006). African American Literature Beyond Race : An Alternative Reader / ed. by Gene Andrew Jarrett. (G. A. Jarrett, Ed.). New York University Press,. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814743751 Lacey, L. J. (2014). The past that might have been, the future that may come : women writing fantastic fiction, 1960s to the present / Lauren J. Lacey. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Yoshinaga, I. M., Guynes, S., & Canavan, G. (Eds.). (2022). Uneven futures : strategies for community survival from speculative fiction / edited by Ida Yoshinaga, Sean Guynes, and Gerry Canavan. (First edition.). The MIT Press. Zamalin, A. (2019). Black Utopia : the history of an idea from Black nationalism to Afrofuturism / Alex Zamalin. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/zama18740

Method: This workshop uses the pedagogy of the oppressed by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire in which we collectively explore narratives of race building together contra-narratives based on Afrofuturism. This methodology looks for inclusivity, dialogue, and decentralization in which structures of power and othering are put in question. The instructor gives theoretical inputs and first impulses which will be guiding a collective interaction ending in a narrative produced as community. This workshop seeks to bring people together and learn from each other producing collective epistemologies.