The book tells the story of Anyanwu, a self-healing, shapeshifting demigod who can control her body completely and therefore live forever. The story begins in a pre-colonial African village where she meets Doro, another demigod who brings death. The story spans some 500 years and moves through early slavery, moving to the United States, and up to present day. The environment and body are very present in the book, and I'd like to explore notions of becoming animal / animism / being animalistic (which Anyanwu does frequently), of embodying environments, body-awareness and the life/decay nature of healing.
Snake, a healer, travels a post-apocalyptic world and heals people with Mist, Grass and Sand, three snakes with special abilities. The book follows her efforts to understand the origins and nature of Grass, the most powerful and rare of these snakes, who refuses to fit any known categories of a human understanding of animals, their lives and reproduction. I'd like to talk about care, trance, dreaming, making kin and queerness (don't wanna ruin the book, but what she discovers about Grass is pretty amazing).
Paradise, a planet used solely for tourism, falls to a commercial war in which none of the landscape, flora or fauna can be harmed, so 'discreet' weaponry is used (sound bombs, drones, etc). A bunch of clueless, wealthy tourists get stuck and need rescue. Alyx, a human (?) from a place and time similar to medieval earth is sent from another reality to save the tourists. I'd like to discuss voyeurism, tourist privilege, being outdoors, surviving vs thriving, and the local implications of distant wars.
In the World of Xenogenesis, Earth has finally succumbed to humanity’s efforts and has become uninhabitable. The few humans remaining are, unbeknown to them, saved by an alien species capable of manipulating both molecules and DNA like we manipulate pen and paper. Terrifying to the unadjusted human eye, the Oankali have 3 sexes, operate in family units of 5 parents, and mutate themselves along every species they meet. The series looks at xenophobia, colonialism, amorphous biological identities, gender & familial roles, and challenges our definition of terms like “person” and “human”. It raises very difficult questions of progress and forced assimilation.
In this Sci-Fi Curriculum we will listen to 10 minutes of Imago, the 3rd book of Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series, accompanied by Arca’s Prada/Rakata music video, as well as a snippet out of a panel discussion at UCLA with the author in 2002 discussing imagining futures. I will introduce my interest in Speculative Fiction and share how I have used it in my practice so far, including an example of a recent sound work which uses Speculative Fiction methodologies. We will discuss mutation, gender, power and futurity as ingredients for Worldbuilding and Fictioning, and as an ending exercise, take time to practice an active imagining of a future that might be important to us. This last exercise can be done privately or later at home, as these questions often take time to simmer.
Long-term nuclear waste warning messages
This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
The stuff on myth and legend. Need to write this up 👆