Octavia Butler's Black Mysticism and the Poetics of Change Público

Abstract

Octavia Butler’s Parable series is well known for its depiction of Earthseed, a fictional religion that forms after societal collapse. Earthseed has two paradoxical core tenets: one, that God is Change; and two, that God and the universe exist to shape and be shaped by each other. I propose that the paradoxical relationship between Earthseed’s God and the universe offers an entryway into what may be described as the black mysticism at the heart of Earthseed. Drawn from contemporary movements in black studies, I use the term ‘black mysticism’ to denote an attunement within and to blackness. This orientation is not simply the condition of being a racially black person but, more fundamentally, black mysticism indexes an anarchic spiritual and material plane: a shared site of abjection, liminality, and impossibility irreducible to black people. By reading Earthseed’s universe as blackness, we find that Butler provides a critical lens through which to examine the mystical poetics of change. In exploring the praxis and poetics of Butler’s black mysticism, I share my experiences with the Earthseed Land Collective, a mutualaid cooperative inspired by her Parable series. I use my ethnography to observe the mystical poetics of change at work in the relationships between individuals, collectives, and the spaces they inhabit. I argue that, by becoming attuned to the dynamic interplay between change and blackness that Earthseed is founded upon, we can inhabit a mode of becoming as undoing with radical potential for collective transformation.

Table of Contents

Introduction………..……………………………………………………………………....………………..2

Chapter One: Dream Lessons……………………………………………………………………………..13

Chapter Two: Gods and Squash Beetles………………………………………………....……………..44

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………..68

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………..72

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	African American Studies
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	African American Studies Literature, Comparative
Palabra Clave	Mysticism Religion Octavia Butler Blackness Black radical thought Mutual aid Poetics Abolition Feminism Speculative fiction Ecology
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Alix Olson, Emory University Dianne Stewart, Emory University Meina Yates-Richard, Emory University

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