Final question: In response to the everyday Anthropocene, In The Parable of The Sower, How does Lauren’s community symbolize humanity when talking about survivability and spirituality?
Clausen, Daniel D. “Cli-Fi Georgic and Grassroots Mutual Aid in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Western American Literature, vol. 56, no. 3, 2021, pp. 269–86, https://doi.org/10.1353/wal.2021.0040.
The article “Cli-Fi Georgic and Grassroots Mutual Aid in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower” argues how the Parable of the Sower is seen as a cli-fi georgic example but it follows Butler’s enactment of labor and its impacts on the Anthropocene climate crisis. Clausen talks about how The Parable of the Sower focuses on labor and agriculture and how that emphasizes how survival looks like a post-climate crisis. Clausen also speaks on how Butler emphasizes problems such as ecological problems, the minority class, and how the system fails minorities. How this article contributes to my argument is it shows how in the novel, Lauren teaches us readers how to survive a climate crisis world, how climate change can truly affect not only their world but also how it can affect people. We can see how Lauren helps others by better preparing herself and being ready for any damage or impact that may come her way. This matters because we can see how Lauren’s community not only helps her, but they also come together to survive together, they take their lessons and experiences and unite to survive a post-apocalyptic world.
Davidson, Joe. “Fear of a Black Planet: Climate Apocalypse, Anthropocene Futures and Black Social Thought.” Journal of Sociology, vol. 57, no. 4, 2021, pp. 940–957, https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310211067980.
The article “Fear of A Black Planet: Climate Apocalypse, Anthropocene Futures and Black Social Thought” argues how African American thinkers have reinvented climate apocalypse in three ways. The first way is to examine the function of apocalyptic narratives containing something fundamental about the social world. The second way is the connection between the end of the world and accounts of radical social information. The final way is how the apocalypse isn’t an event but something that is endured and escaped. This article is relevant to my argument because it speaks highly of the racial narrative of the apocalypse and how it connects to the Anthropocene. In my argument, I speak about the everyday Anthropocene and how it’s connected to Lauren and her community, and how it associates to the idea of survivability and spirituality. This article helps me further my research by providing insight into how the racial narrative is related to the idea of survival in the Anthropocene. It matters because Lauren and her community face a lot of challenges, especially in the beginning when Lauren had to learn how to use a gun from her father, it was as if it needed to be inscribed into her memory how to protect themselves and their families because of the color that they were and where they lived. The article shines light on the same aspect when it comes to the racial narrative and how it can affect an apocalyptic world.
Miller, Jim. “Post-Apocalyptic Hoping: Octavia Butler’s Dystopian/Utopian Vision.” Science Fiction Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 1998, pp. 336–360. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4240705.
The article “Post-Apocalyptic Hoping: Octavia Butler’s Dystopian/Utopian Vision” argues that Octavia Butler in her novel Parable of the Sower provides amazing examples of a critical dystopia. How she works through the elements of culture rather than revealing symptoms of what is seen in a critical dystopia. Not only, does she hold a feminist utopian writing form but she moves beyond the patriarchal version, she engages the reader in a more clear and discontinuous, we get to see how her characters show us as readers what a post-apocalyptic world looks like. How this article is relevant to my argument, is by being able to comprehend more of Octavia Butler’s strategies, the form in which she wrote The Parable Of The Sower, I can see how her characters come together to portray the post-apocalyptic world and how they survive through it. This matters because being able to understand how Octaiva not only includes the hierarchical class and shows us a world that is scary, and real, and how her characters can overcome it, we can see how race, class, and gender fit into the post-apocalyptic world.
Feist, Ella. “Analysing the Disproportionate Impact of Climate Disaster on Social Minorities as Represented in Climate Fiction: Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife.” Journal of Intersectional Social Justice, Access Academia, 31 Aug. 2023, jisj.pubpub.org/pub/iqf31op5.
The article “Analysing the Disproportionate Impact of Climate Disaster on Social Minorities as Represented in Climate Fiction: Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife” argues how both texts between Parable of the sower and The Water knife both similarly draw on past histories of discrimination and modern climate data and how they affect these impacts. The articles discuss how both texts start off with a drought and how that can impact the characters. As noted blacks are seen to be more vulnerable, however, we should also look at other minorities as well. We can see how minorities tend to be most vulnerable when it comes to a post-apocalyptic world, where everyone is suffering for water, food, for survival. We can see how they become affected every single day by day-to-day decisions. How this article relates to my argument is minority groups become the most vulnerable when an impact such as climate change happens, because of the lack of money, they’re not able to help themselves a lot. When it comes to a post-apocalyptic world, people seek food, water, and a better home but people who lack money aren’t able to do much but find ways of survival like Lauren Olimana. Lauren not only prepares herself with readings based on survival but she helps her community as well. Her father teaches her self-defense because that is their only form of survival being able to defend themselves and to think quickly but proactively. This matters because with this article we can see a more narrower perspective on how minorities are affected by climate change, and we can better relate to Lauren by being able to understand the depth of the impacts on the minority class.
Rutledge, Gregory. “Futurist Fiction & Fantasy: The ‘Racial’ Establishment.” Callaloo, vol. 24, no. 1, 2001, pp. 236–252. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3300498.
The article “Futurist Fiction and Fantasy: The “Racial” Establishment” argues how speculative fiction overlooks/ignores race, it tends to overlook black authors. In the article, we read about how black authors have contributed to speculative fiction and how their ideas have brought change to it. One of the authors was Octavia Butler who had set the foundation for a futurology that many diasporic Africans had imagined. Octavia in most of her novels/stories portrays strong female leads who face various challenges in their life, but hold their ground. She empowers her female characters and makes them see the power they contain. How this article contributes to my argument is when it comes to Lauren, we see how she is a powerful and confident female lead. Although she may feel that her hyperempathy syndrome is seen as a weakness, something others will feel afraid of or make fun of for. However, throughout the novel, we see how her hyperempathy becomes a strength for her, it helps her survive the post-apocalyptic world. This matters because we see how Octavia holds her female leads on a high pedestal, in her writing she tends to give them power and control. In the exact same way African authors should feel over their own stories, they should feel in control and in power. They’re able to change the way speculative fiction works.
Lana Curtis-Rodriguez (she/her) on 
Kimberly Bonilla
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