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.

First, a revised question. Rather than considering the readers take on “time travel” in Cli-Fi novels, I’d like to shift the focus over to the authors themselves. The new question being, What can authors do, within their written work, to better portray the severity and significance of climate change to broader audiences?

OR

What can writers, and artists in general, do in order to better capture the attention of the audience?

Alexander, Jake M., et al. “Novel Competitors Shape Species’ Responses to Climate Change.” Nature, vol. 525, no. 7570, Sept. 2015, pp. 515–18. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/10.1038/nature14952.

• When it comes to climate change, there are many areas of concern. One of the main concerns are the effects that climate change can have regarding wildlife. The well being of animals is something most people with even half way decent morals care about. I personally have not read a novel that detailed any explicit harm or devastation to animals outside of non-fiction nature books. Perhaps including that more in fictitious novels focused on climate change can reach wider community types.

Archer, Neil. “Transnational Science Fiction at the End of the World: Consensus, Conflict, and the Politics of Climate Change.” Cinema Journal, vol. 58, no. 3, 2019, pp. 1–25, https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2019.0020.

• Not everyone is a book worm. There are many people who prefer film over a pile of pages. This article focuses on ways to incorporate science fiction into popular genre cinema. By doing so, film writers can find ways to ask/present important environmental questions.

Canavan, Gerry. “Science Fiction and Utopia in the Anthropocene.” American Literature, vol. 93, no. 2, 2021, pp. 255–82, https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-9003582.

• Canavan talks about pieces of literary and cinematic works that have already made impact in the representation of climate change in the creative world. He also goes into detail of when and how the Anthropocene began. This article can aid in solving my question by providing answers to what has already made cultural impact.

Nikoleris, Alexandra, et al. “Narrating Climate Futures: Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and Literary Fiction.” Climatic Change, vol. 143, no. 3-4, 2017, pp. 307–19, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2020-2.

• This article covers the topic of “real life science meets literature.” It also shows how fiction can build a connection with climate change by telling the story in specific ways and providing new perspectives in a different way than what has been done before.