Hopkins & Butler papers (WisCon 31)
Academic Papers•Conference Room 3• Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.
1) Although generally not categorized as speculative fiction, Pauline Hopkins’s novel Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self (1902-1903) can be placed within that genre. Of One Blood is probably the first novel by an African American woman to have a science fiction-style alternative history. In this paper, I will explore the ways that the novel, which is concerned with history and mythic spaces, represents images of African-American women that are linked (through direct reference or symbolism) to female rulers of ancient African nations. 2) Octavia Butler’s last novel, Fledgling, challenges and explores the mythology of vampirism as erotic malady, recasting horror in scientific terms as addiction. Yet Butler’s text evokes disturbing questions of loss of voluntarity and control associated with both addiction and eroticism. Interrogating desire and domination, passion and power, the novel submits to us that claiming desire is not necessarily liberatory, and liberation is not necessarily salvation.
Sandra Marie Grayson, Frann Michel