Chakravarty, Urjani. “Exploring Literary Multilingualism in Indian Diasporic Writing.” Forum for World Literature Studies, vol. 10, no. 3, Sept. 2018, pp. 528+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A580598784/AONE?u=cuny_hunter&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=0a536cc3. Accessed 19 Nov. 2022.

• This source will be useful to prove the effects of multilingualism in writing. More specifically, this text focuses on diasporic writers who adapt language to appeal to their readers. The places in Ghosh’s novel that do include these adaptations of language are there for a reason, they hold a certain purpose that gets across to the reader. This will help me explain why I’m making my argument.

Chaudhuri, Supriya. “Translating Loss: Place and Language in Amitav Ghosh and Salman Rushdie”, Études anglaises, vol. 62, no. 3, 2009, pp. 266-279.

• This article challenges why Ghosh decided to write his novel in English as well as that of another known novelist, Salman Rushdie. The article also digs deeper into the “unspoken languages of the material setting”. This is another aspect of communication that I think is important to include in my paper as the characters in Ghosh’s novel communicate in more ways than just spoken language.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Hungry Tide. Harper Perennial, 2006.

• I’ve subtracted a political science journal that did not contribute to my research question as much as I thought. I think it would have been very hard to attempt to connect my arguments to the source. This new source that I’ve added is simply the novel The Hungry Tide itself because it will be useful to use real examples from the book involving language and communication between the characters in ways other than a shared language.

Sen, Krishna, and Rituparna Roy, editors. “Writing India Anew: Indian English Fiction 2000-2010”. Amsterdam University Press, 2013. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt45kd51. Accessed 19 Nov. 2022.

• This source gives more examples of Indian English fiction writers. There is much praise in this chapter, “Revisiting Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide: The Islam/English Dynamic”, of Ghosh’s writing ability and why it stood the test of time. The author also goes on to say that writing about oppression in India is an act of reparation.

Tasnim, Zakiyah. “Transformation of English Language in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Advances in Language and Literary Studies, vol. 9, no. 3, 2018, pp. 145-150. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/transformation-english-language-amitav-ghosh-s/docview/2188079590/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.9n.3p.145.

• I think this source is the strongest in terms of relation to my research question. It exactly explains the power of language in Ghosh’s characters in The Hungry Tide. Another great point this text makes is the multilingualism that Kanai exhibits is often not sufficient to communicate properly with others. The characters mainly focused on in this article are Fokir, Piya, and Kanai that communicate in both silence and language attempts.

Being overly confused is where I found myself while reading this text. You would expect a book to go from point a to point b however I feel we made a few wrong turns and pit stops along the way. There was no bait on what we were supposed to be catching that the writer is saying, however as I continued to push through it became a bit clearer on where we are going. 

Starting with the title we get the vision that time is of the essence, you have so much to do with so little time. As we continue reading we can see a bit of this with Ben trying to scramble so many thoughts into one place at once. With a clearer path of the author’s thought however they are still a bit tangled as to how every situation coincides with each other.  While reading I got the feeling of “to do or not to do” as if he was rationing out every life choice until the end. With the same routine everyday leaving him what a sense of stability and control.I believe everything he is doing was with the end goal of leaving something behind emotionally more than physically. What is interesting to me is that even though he does not know how much time he has to live he does not let that get in the way of his daily routine. Although he is scared he will not achieve much in life while losing the self esteem he has built up throughout his life. Through all this he still decided to be a sperm donor, now was this a rational or emotional decision on his behalf. Did he want to leave this world with something of his that he was unable to do himself due to lack of relations he has had? Either way he is being bold and yet indecisive with what he wants the world to know. 

What confuses me the most is that instead of worrying about his health and trying to do everything possible he is worried about global warming. Out of all things he is worried about something that has been happening for decades but now is finally showing the consequences. I get the feeling that by trying to have control on global warming and come up with different ways to help save the world he is actually just doing this as a way to mask as if he has control of his own health. Being reckless with your physical body yet trying to fight the whole world is a strength not many people have or can even think of doing.  

Apocalyptic Empathy: A “Parable” of Postmodern Sentimentality

Wanzo, Rebecca. “Apocalyptic Empathy: A ‘Parable’ of Postmodern Sentimentality.” Obsidian III, vol. 6/7, 2005, pp. 72–86. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44511663. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Palimpsests in the Life and Work of Octavia E. Butler Bailey, Moya ; Jamieson, Ayana A H

Bailey, M., & Jamieson, A. A. H. (2017). Guest editors’ introduction: Palimpsests in the life and work of Octavia E. butler. Palimpsest, 6(2), 225,V-XIII. Retrieved from http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/guest-editors-introduction-palimpsests-life-work/docview/2610114467/se-2

“A More Realistic View”: Reimagining Sympoietic Practice in Octavia Butler’s   Parables. 

Stark, Doug. “‘A More Realistic View’: Reimagining Sympoietic Practice in Octavia Butler’s Parables.” Extrapolation, vol. 61, no. 1, spring 2020, pp. 151+. Gale Academic OneFile,link.gale.com/apps/doc/A624327073/AONE?u=cuny_hunter&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=289fa979. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.

Parable of the Sower

Cambell, Loretta H. “Parable of the Sower.” Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women, vol. 10, no. 1, fall 1994, p. 86. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A16462297/AONE?u=cuny_hunter&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=cb1f395e. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.

On Compassion and the Sublime Black Body: Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower

Johnson, Ikea M. “On Compassion and the Sublime Black Body: Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 43, no. 2, summer 2020, pp. 92+. Gale Academic OneFilelink.gale.com/apps/doc/A643530335/AONE?u=cuny_hunter&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=9cd4cd1b. Accessed 21 Nov. 2022.

The process in finding these sources were complicated yet easy at the same time. At first I opened all my websites that I will be using including jstor , google scholar, and the hunter library. When I searched up “hyper empathy” there were a few searches but not what i wanted. I added a few more words such as “butler” and “octavia ” and there were very specific searches but not what I needed. I then went on google and searched the same thing and it sent me to an article in google scholar, but i did not find anything else on that website for what i was looking for. Lastly, I went to Hunter Library and changed hyper empathy with “emotion” and I got a few more articles that were better than what previously came up.  

After reading through my sources again I would like to condense my question to focus on how Butler diverges from traditional religious ideas and how the environment (setting, characters, encounters, violence) shapes this.

Annotated Bibliography
JERRY PHILLIPS; The Intuition of the Future: Utopia and Catastrophe in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Novel 1 November 2002; 35 (2-3): 299–311.
• The author of this piece calls Earthseed a “hopeful experiment in enlightened communalism…” (Philips, 2002) and elaborates on the way Butler is making a statement of faith in modernity and undoing all forms of chauvinism associated with faith in religion. In detail he also touches on examples in the novel illustrating that the concept of change leads to a dialectical view of reality, thus being a shaping factor of the Earthseed community.

Melzer, Patricia. “”All that You Touch You Change”: Utopian Desire and the Concept of Change in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.” Femspec 3.2 (2002): 31. ProQuest. 17 Nov. 2022 .
• This piece explores the way children in the novel represent the survival of the community and how they embody the future the adults are trying to create. Melzer explains how through responsibility for others, Lauren finds meaning to life and heals internal wounds. Melzer also highlights how the children’s dependency triggers a growing solidarity among the adults. This piece connects to my question on the way the environment shapes Lauren’s principles of Earthseed which include mutual support, community, and creating and shaping God. The children can be seen as a part of God because they can be shaped and they will shape the future.

McCormack, Michael Brandon. “‘Your God Is a Racist, Sexist, Homophobic, and a Misogynist … Our God Is Change’: Ishmael Reed, Octavia Butler and Afrofuturist Critiques of (Black) American Religion.” Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14769948.2015.1131503.
• This piece dives into Afrofuturist criqtiues of contemporary Black American religion, touching on problems of difference and dominance. It examines Octavia Butler’s racially imagined future and discusses the way Butler calls the integrity of Black christianity through crafting Lauren and her dynamic with her strict baptist home and father. It also examines the way Butler imagines a vision of a black, feminist, youth, future. This article is crucial to answer my research question about what Butler is trying to say about religion through her writing.

Jos, Philip H. “Fear and the Spiritual Realism of Octavia Butler’s Earthseed.” Utopian Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 2012, pp. 408–429., https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.23.2.0408.
• This article points out the relationship between fear and spirituality and religion and the way way crumbling orders, violence, and cruelty in history often spark intolerant religious movements with authoritarian rule in response. It explores the ways in which Parable has the same circumstances, and yet diverges from this common response of intolerant religious movement and instead creates a coherent, non dogmatic belief system focused on community and equality.

Achachelooei, Elham Mohammadi, and Carol Elizabeth Leon. “The Past and ‘Discontinuity in Religion’ in Octavia Butler’s Parables: a Feminist Theological Perspective.” Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, vol. 68, no. 2, 2021, pp. 120–137., doi:10.1080/20512856.2021.1935492.

•  This article investigates the new social order emerging from Lauren’s Earthseed. It explores the way Butler confronts the past roots of Christianity and offers a new way of thought that defies the religious racial, sexual, classist aspects that are the foundation of Christianity. The authors explore the way Lauren revives a society of free human will, change, and recognizing differences that is simultaneously crumbling around them under the pressures of inequality. This article circles back to both parts of my question regarding the environmental shaping factors for Earthseed and another one of Butler’s messages about religion in real life.