Speculative Fiction and Octavia Butler Final Exam

Final Exam Format

• Passage Identification (5): Requires identifying the author and title of the source text.
• Keywords (3): Defining key concepts from class, examples include "wilderness dualism".
• Short Answers (5): Simple questions about concepts and texts. Some may be multiple choice.
• Long Answers (2): Writing paragraphs in response to questions about course texts.
• Essay (1): Choosing one of three essay prompts and writing a 5-paragraph essay. Key passages will be supplied for each prompt.
• Scope: Only texts and concepts discussed in class will be tested; not every text on the syllabus.
• Choices: Multiple-choice questions and essay prompts are offered for exam sections.
• Materials: Blue books, own pen/pencil, no mobile devices, books, or papers permitted.

Speculative Fiction and Octavia Butler

• World-building: Speculative fiction involves constructing detailed, immersive, and plausible settings.
• Butler's Vision: Described through details and examples that emphasize neighborhood life in the 2020's, the fictional world, the relationship between this fictional depiction and reality in 2024, and factors contributing to the knowability/predictability in 1993.

Dystopian Novel's Content Summary 2024

• Author's Perspective: "A Conversation with Octavia E. Butler", (343) where the author reflects on their present situation, current behaviours and potential future issues.
• Themes:
• Climate change (drought, sea-level rise, homelessness)
• Refugee/immigration crises
• Extreme social inequalities (wealth, poverty, securitization of urban spaces)
• Drug crisis and collapse of societal structures
• Political discourse ("returning to normalcy", or "good old days")
• Patriarchy, racism, and authoritarianism
• Corporate power and privatization of public resources
• Debt slavery, trafficking, enslavement, and collapse in public education and infrastructure.
• Threat of FIRE (likely a colloquialism for financial, investment, and environmental disaster)
• Context: The novel's dystopian vision is set in the 2020's.

Novel's Dystopian Structures and Elements

• Structure and Metafiction: The book uses journal entries, first-person narration, "Verses", and excerpts. Lauren is a writer constructing the text.

• Purpose of Fiction: Fiction can be useful for survival and understanding the present and preparing for the future

• Naming: Giving names can help to understand concepts and to create a sense of familiarity and control

Earthseed, Metafiction, and Meaning

• Earthseed: A named belief system. It is a fictional belief system that is the subject of discussion in the text.
• Human intervention: The author considers human impact, role in ecosystems, and the importance of the environment.
• Planet Propagation: Metaphor of Earthseed, used symbolically to represent life, growth and dissemination.
• Purpose/effect: The study asks what is the meaning or purpose of using plant/planetary propagation as a metaphor in the book.

Utopia and Outer Space, Manifest Destiny

• Destiny of Earthseed: To take root among the stars
• Godseed: Humans are Godseed by nature.
• Purpose and meaning related to Utopia and outer space: This part is to determine the author's ideas regarding Utopia and Outer space, and the author's views on Manifest Destiny.

Naming and Meta-parables, Seed Theory

• God-is-Change: A specific belief system that is used to analyze various concepts and ideas, with additional elements like naming, metaphor selection, meaning behind them, and their purpose. Naming is used as part of this process.
• The Word (of God): This is the topic of discussion about the Word as the subject of the parable and other related concepts.
• Sower's Metaphor: The meaning/purpose and effect related to the use of the metaphor of the sower, and the word of God is to be analyzed.

Unchosen Eco-anarchism

• Mutual Aid: Cooperation, self-determination, and forms of assistance to overcome a dysfunctional state. The Unchosen community embodies values of mutual aid rather than reliance on centrally controlled institutions, like a state, or capitalism.
• Provisions: The community provides food, shelter, education, safety, and disaster relief.
• Community Values: Cooperation, shared responsibility, and mutual aid are key, as opposed to the state-controlled systems of traditional governance (political economy and political discourse).

Mutual Aid, Cooperative Evolution/Evolution

• Cooperative Evolution: Humanity's collective efforts lead to positive change and adaptations.
• Intelligence and Adaptation: The author considers the influence of intelligence and adaptation in terms of group evolution and change
• Force of Habit/Habit as Force: The study asks about the concept of habit acting as a strong agent for positive adaptations in life, and in society.

Apocalypse vs. Collapse

• Generational Conflicts: The conflicts and differences between the older and younger generations, and the struggle to adapt to new circumstances.
• Adaptation: The resilience shown by older generations due to different historical backgrounds and their experience of change and loss.

Whose Worlds Have Ended, Parables

• World's Collapse: The analysis of the conditions that lead to a collapse of the world.
• Retrograde Fantasies: The study examines whether denying reality, and clinging to past illusions, hurts the individuals and/or communities.
• Dystopian/Utopian Cues: A study of the duality of these concepts using the text as a reference.
• Generational Conflict and Responsibility: The analysis considers how to analyze generational conflict, and the responsibilities of the current generation regarding the past and future, and who might be accountable due to past or present circumstances.

Hyperempathy and Consequences

• Biological Conscience: Understanding how hyperempathy potentially creates or manifests as a “biological conscience”
• Violence: The analysis also focuses on the subject of interpersonal/interpersonal violence using text as a reference, and to what extent hyperempathy acts as a mitigating factor.
• Shared Experiences: The sharing of past experiences through narration to create empathy.
• De-sensitization: How hyperempathy is potentially de-sensitizing and mitigating the impact of everyday violence.

On the Road, Catastrophe, Dystopia

• Simplicity, Luxury, Beauty, and Hope: The study explores themes of simplicity and appreciation/embracing of beauty in the face of catastrophe, dystopian ideas and hope.
• Comfort, Laziness, Knowing, Rest: These concepts are analyzed in terms of their effect on the community and on those who are on the road in search of safety and security, as well as to appreciate or analyze their emotional states related to their circumstances.
• Pacific Ocean: How the ocean's effect and impact are related to the themes of the study.
• Sabbath-structure: Provides rest, recreation and a sense of heightened peacefulness.

Acorn, Community, and Rituals

• Community Values: The emphasis placed on the values of community and the practical implications of life in a community, and the values emphasized in the community context.
• Organised Time: The significance and effect of the organization of time on the community.
• Rituals and Commemorations: Rituals for life commemoration (e.g., weekly “Bible Study”).

Earthseed Theology

• God Concept: The analysis considers different views of God.
• God is Change: This philosophical concept will be referenced.
• Worship and Perception: To what extent does worship, and how we perceive God, influence human behaviour and society.
• Action and Service: How does the author present the importance of human agency/action and service.

Final Quiz/Reflection Questions

• What is a sticking point from the novel?
• What questions or lessons do you takeaway from this novel?
• One Short Verse (like Earthseed): Formulate a verse or quote to describe the takeaways from the specific novel in question. (a creative and engaging method of reflection and expression).