by Tarshia L. Stanley


Happy Birthday!
The OEB Literary Society is a year old. Like most toddlers we experienced moments of rapid growth and incidences of bruised knees as we sought a way forward. At our initial meeting at the American Literature Association conference in Boston 2013, we put together a slate of officers and two members. We've now grown to more than 50 members and were able to sponsor two very excellent panels at ALA 2014 in Washington, DC! Both panels were well attended and provoked deep and interesting conversation.


Bryan Conn of the University of North Texas began the first panel with "'It’s your body': Kindred’s Black Liberalism and the Logic of Contract" which caused a lively debate surrounding the in/ability of an enslaved person to participate in body contracts. Kristen Lillvis from Marshall University added another level of insight reading fictive musical performances as afrofuturist texts with a paper entitled: "Afrofuturist Tempo-rality in the Work of Erykah Badu, Janelle Monáe, and Gayl Jones." Howard University professor and officer in the OEB society, Greg Hampton, added fruit to the African Diaspora scholar's apple carts with his paper, "Reading Aimé Césaire with Octavia Butler: A Tempest and Discourse on Colonialism as Science Fiction Narratives of Aliens Invasion."
The second panel sponsored by the society began with a reading of Earthseed and Black Liberation Theology. Clarence W. Tweedy from the University of Mary Washington gave us much to think about in his paper, "In the Name of Change: Prophecy and Redemption in the Fiction of Octavia Butler." "Backward-Looking Futures: Horizons of Change in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower," was an innovative read of circuitous time travel from Matthew Mullins of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The panel was rounded out by thoughts from Saddleback College's Deanna Gross Scherger and her reading of feminist angst around issues of  birth and body control in her paper, "The Gene Trade: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series and the New Eugenics." All in all it was a very nice birthday party!


The society is proud of the intellectual scholarship and diversity we were able to offer at ALA 2014. Among our goals for our terrific twos are to increase membership, to produce a newsletter, and to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the publication of Butler's Fledgling. We will sponsor two more panels in 2015 and I personally hope to see significant strides made toward completing the MLA teaching series volume I have proposed: Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler. Please consider filling out the survey and submitting a proposal for the volume by July 1. All questions regarding the volume should be sent via email to: [email protected]. Questions about the society are fielded at [email protected].


Again, Happy Birthday to the Octavia E. Butler Literary Society and Happy Summer to all of you!


Tarshia

by Courtnee Brinker

Going into this panel, I had nothing but high expectations, and coming out of the panel, I felt pleased. It's a known fact: people who read and enjoy Octavia Butler's works are inherently cool. And now I'm one of them. The panel contained a mix of artists and activists, many of who relate their work back to Octavia Butler and are finding ways to use her texts to inspire movements. With a panel chocked full of insightful people, I jotted notes to keep up, but one comment really stuck out to me--no notes required. Junot Díaz (whose credentials are available on wikipedia. Also, Junot, a few girls in my class are hardcore fangirls) said that our subconscious has a way of showing up in the work that we do, and specifically our writing. It was an interesting idea considering many people set out to write about specific issues like racism, feminism, sexism, agism, etc in their writing, but what about the ideas we aren't even thinking about? As frustrating as it can be, writing is so cathartic. As a Spelman student I actively think a lot about feminism and women's roles within texts and in real-world situations, and a lot of that shows up in my writing, but I think after Junot's comment, I am more inclined to regularly journal to see what I'm thinking about when I'm not even aware that I'm thinking. Is my mind ever really off the clock? As we move into the spring/summer/school-less months, I plan to journal for ten minutes a day; I want to know more about my subconscious, and I encourage readers of this blog to try it with me!

On another note, today was the last day of our Butler's Daughter's: Imagining Leadership class. I am particularly thankful for this class and glad to be one of the pioneers of this course because it opened my eyes to an entire field of study (afrofuturism), incredibly talented authors, and my own capabilities to write and produce science fiction with black protagonists. I've always been interested in science-fiction books and movies like Gattaca and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, for example, but it never occurred to me that I could be the one telling those stories, and that the people in the stories could look like me. Octavia is correct when she writes, "all you touch, you change," because this course has enlightened me in so many unexpected ways, and moved me into long-term action as a reader, writer and thinker.
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To our scarily-patient instructors Dr. Stanley and Professor Due, many thanks.