Reading Octavia Butler’s Novel Parable of the Sower

guided by Adrienne Maree Brown and Toshi Reagon’s podcast “Octavia’s Parables”

 

Rev. Sam is organizing a book study class to introduce the deep theology and cultural analysis found in Octavia Butler’s Afro-Futurism novels. The source for the class is a podcast called Octavia’s Parables by Adrienne Maree Brown and Toshi Reagon. Both are deeply devoted to her as a writer and a source of inspiration for their activism and their artistic work.

 

There is one episode of the podcast for each chapter of Butler’s book “Parable of the Sower.” In each episode, the chapter is briefly summarized and discussed. Themes are identified and become the source for discussion questions. We will read (or reread) each chapter and listen to that chapter’s podcast before the class. We’ll discuss the chapter and their podcast for the first part of the class. The second part of the class will be broken into smaller groups to discuss the questions identified in the podcast. We’ll come back together after the discussion time to share highlights from our group discussions. 

 

The class will meet from 7-8pm on Sunday nights on Zoom beginning October 24. Please invite your friends! I’m hoping to identify some guest speakers who are Butler scholars to speak with us and share their analysis. The goal of the class is to grow and develop our own theology through engaging with Butler’s text and the questions that come from the podcast as well as be influenced by Butler, Brown and Reagon’s social and cultural critiques.