Symbiotic Bodies and Evolutionary Tropes in the Work of Octavia Butler
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11059110 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maria Aline Ferreira, Maria A G V Ferreira (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | Part 3 |
| Pages | 401-415 |
| Publication date | 2010-11-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Fiction Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0091-7729 • E-ISSN: 2327-6207 |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/sfs.37.3.0401 |
| OpenAlex | W4408684411 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
This essay examines the tropes of the parasite, the host, and the symbiont in Octavia Butler’s early novels Mind of My Mind (1977), Clay’s Ark (1984), and Wild Seed (1978). These figures can be seen as directly implicated in and representative of the evolutionary and adaptive strategies operating in Butler’s fiction. The essay engages predominantly with Michel Serres’s analysis of parasitism in its multiple facets as well as Donna Haraway’s investigation of symbiotic relatedness, two thematic areas that receive detailed attention in Butler’s work. Butler’s fictional elaboration of altenative future paradigms of connectedness negotiates the potentially positive aspects of genetic fusions and symbiotic alliances, achieved with recourse to versions of genetic engineering techniques and novel bioscientific developments that Butler has anticipated in many crucial ways. While expanding on some putatively beneficial scenarios arising as a result of these new biotechnologies, her fiction also sounds a cautionary note about the dangers inherent in the dilution of human embodiment and subjectivity that might occur as the outcome of as yet unforeseen inter- and intra-species mergings
Work (physics) · Engineering · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2025 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |