Rites of Passage, Liminality, and Community in Octavia E. Butler’s Science Fiction Novels

Download or read book Rites of Passage, Liminality, and Community in Octavia E. Butler’s Science Fiction Novels written by Lin Knutson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-03-06 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rites of Passage, Liminality, and Community in Octavia E. Butler’s Science Fiction Novels explores the ways in which Octavia Butler’s liminal protagonists undergo ritualized transformations while in exile from their home communities. During this process, they engage in psychological, physical, political, and social transitions through what Victor Turner and Makhail Bakhtin describe as carnivalesque identities. Using postcolonial, feminist, anti-capitalist, and African American theorists, Lin Knutson examines how Butler’s imagined genesis and history carry echoes of American history, slave history, debt slavery, and colonization.