How is the utopian process of creating a political order out of a dystopian society without the need of a ruler in “Parables of the Sower”?

Phillips, Jerry . “The Intuition of the Future: Utopia and Catastrophe in Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower.” JSTOR.org, summer 2002, www.jstor.org/stable/1346188. 

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.”” JSTOR.org, winter 2009, www.jstor.org/stable/27743152. 

Agusti, C. (2005). The Relationship Between Community and Subjectivity in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Extrapolation, 46(3), 351–359. https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2005.46.3.7

Zamalin, A. (2019). OCTAVIA BUTLER AND THE POLITICS OF UTOPIAN TRANSCENDENCE. In Black Utopia (pp. 123–136). Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/zama18740-010

Stillman, Peter G. “Dystopian Critiques, Utopian Possibilities, and Human Purposes in Octavia Butler’s Parables.” JSTOR.org, 2003, www.jstor.org/stable/20718544.

How does the change in point of view throughout the novel, The Hungry Tide, utilize the gender roles of the narrators to showcase varying perspectives of the world, community, and environment?

I used Google Scholar and Hunter Libraries to conduct my research. I found these resources beneficial to my overall observation and query on morality as depicted in Climate Fiction.

Holt, Robert R. “Freud’s Impact on Modern Morality.” The Hastings Center Report, vol. 10, no. 2, 1980, pp. 38–45. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3561279.

Ravven, Heidi M., et al. “Spinoza to Freud: The Unraveling of a Psycho-Analytical Perspective on Moral Responsibility and Law.” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Pergamon, 10 Aug. 2016, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016025271630142X.

Lippmann, Walter. “A Preface to Morals.” Google Books, Transaction Publishers, books.google.com/books/about/A_Preface_To_Morals.html?id=-E4WFG-G30sC.

Weik, Alexa. “The Home, the Tide, and the World: Eco-Cosmopolitan Encounters in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Researchgate | Find and Share Research, www.researchgate.net/publication/269520259_The_Home_the_Tide_and_the_World_Eco-Cosmopolitan_Encounters_in_Amitav_Ghoshs_The_Hungry_Tide.

Leavenworth, Maria  Lindgren. “Climate Fiction and Young Learners’ Thoughts—A Dialogue …” Researchgate | Find and Share Research, www.researchgate.net/publication/347401335_Climate_fiction_and_young_learners’_thoughts-a_dialogue_between_literature_and_education.

Two TPSs today: one on research, one on Offill:

What’s your usual procedure in kicking off research, once you have a prompt or a self-generated question or thesis? How did that procedure differ this time, if at all? How did you initiate the search for sources? Did you have to modify your search as you went?

In The Great Derangement, Ghosh points out that the realist novel grew out of an era of great faith in “incrementalism,” the belief that nature evolves in a slow-moving, predictable way. Just as novel plots that rely on sudden, unmotivated decisions by characters or implausible, atypical disasters (like the tornado he experienced in his youth in New Delhi) seem “unrealistic” and cheap, scientific hypotheses that rely on unpredictable, sudden changes (like the once-scoffed-at notion that a meteor triggered the mass extiction of the dinosaurs) were rejected out of hand.

How does Offill’s novel relate to this idea? How do its form and themes engage the questions of what’s “realistic” in the Anthropocene?

I used Hunter College Libraries’ OneSearch to search many topics in one search. I was always to adjust the resource type I wanted to use and the subject I wanted the information to be about. I want to break apart the role religion plays in understanding climate change. How are Clifi novels like Butler’s Sower and Ghosh’s Tide pushed to explore religion and what does this exploration do for the novel? Something of this nature I am still not too clear on how I want to phrase the question.

Jenkins, Willis. “Religion and Climate Change.” Annualreviews, Willis Jenkins,1,2 Evan Berry,3 and Luke Beck Kreider1, Oct. 2018, www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/energy/43/1/annurev-environ-102017-025941.pdf?expires=1715037725&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=556803653A0948C9CBF098FB160A3E46.

Nakayama, Mikiyasu, et al. “Influence of Religion, Culture and Education on Perception of Climate Change, and Its Implications.” Journal of Disaster Research, Fuji Technology Press Ltd., 1 Dec. 2019, www.fujipress.jp/jdr/dr/dsstr001400091297/.

Brissman, Ive. “The Search for Enchantment in Times of Climate Change: Religious or Spiritual Responses to Climate Crisis.” Wiley Online Library, Dec. 2023, onlinelibrary-wiley-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/doi/full/10.1111/dial.12836.

Schuman, Simone. “Religious Beliefs and Climate Change Adaptation: A Study of Three Rural South African Communities.” Gale Academic Online, Simone Schuman, Jon-Vegard Dokken, Dewald van Niekerk and Ruth A. Loubser, 2018, go-gale-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=cuny_hunter&id=GALE%7CA562807605&v=2.1&it=r.

Pihkala, Panu. “ECO-ANXIETY, TRAGEDY, AND HOPE: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.” Wiley Online Library, 2018, onlinelibrary-wiley-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/doi/full/10.1111/zygo.12407.