Octavia Butler and the Aesthetics of the Novel

Abstract

Octavia Butler depicts a character with physical or mental disability in each of her works. Yet scholars hesitate to discuss her work in terms that emphasize the intersection with disability. Two salient questions arise: How might it change Butler scholarship if we situated intersectional embodied experience as a central locus for understanding her work? Once we privilege such intersectionality, how might this transform our understanding of the aesthetics of the novel? In this paper, I reorient the criticism of Butler's work such that disability becomes one of the social categories under consideration. I read two prominent analyses of Butler's work because their interpretations—black feminist in orientation—centralize black female identity as a category of analysis. I contend these analyses grapple with ideas that can only be fully understood with disability as an integral portion of the discussion. Since categories of analysis like race, disability, and gender require and create cultural tropes and challenge accepted forms, I outline three components of Butler's aesthetic: open‐ended conclusions that frustrate the narrative cohesion associated with the novel form, intricate depictions of power that potentially alienate the able‐bodied reader, and contained literary chaos that upends the idea of ontological fixity.

Novos diálogos dos estudos feministas da deficiência

“…Therí Pickens (2015), por sua vez, aponta para a importância das análises de Judith Butler, em relação aos conceitos de precariedade, processos de inteligibilidade e enquadramentos que são dados às vidas marginalizadas, argumentando serem perfeitamente compatíveis com os estudos feministas da deficiência, evidenciando ainda que esses conceitos são fundamentais nessa discussão.…”

Contributions of a Teacher Training Program to Inclusive Education

“…Without denying the first generation contributions, the second generation proposes advances in the debate. Influenced by feminist and culturalist theories, it brings important discussions to the field of studies on disabilities, such as interdependence as a central principle in people's lives, considering their precarious life situation (Pickens, 2015), the debate on the ethics of care (Kittay, 2015), and pain experience (Diniz et al, 2010). In addition, it also highlights disability as a category of analysis to be considered in social studies and practices, since it, when intersecting with gender, sexuality, race, religion and social class, may support oppression and social exclusion processes (Gesser et al, 2012).…”