Octavia Butler Primary and Secondary Source Bibliography

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Omphalos
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Octavia Butler Primary and Secondary Source Bibliography

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PRIMARY SOURCES

STAND ALONE BOOKS

Butler, Octavia E., Bloodchild: And Other Stories. 1996, Seven Stories Press, ISBN 1583226982. Contains the short stories titled Bloodchild, Evening, Near of Kin, Speech Sounds and Crossover, as well as the essays Positive Obsession and Furor Scribendi. This item is reviewed here. Later editions of this work include the two items listed below as "Uncollected Short Stories."

Butler, Octavia E., Fledgling. 2005, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 0446696161. This item is reviewed here.

Butler, Octavia E., Kindred. 1979, Beacon Press, ISBN 0807083690.



PARABLE/EARTHSEED SERIES (UNCOMPLETED AT DEATH)

Butler, Octavia E., Parable of the Sower. 1994, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 0446675504.

Butler, Octavia E., Parable of the Talents. 1999, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 0446610380. This item is reviewed here.

NOTE: Parable of the Trickster was planned when Ms. Butler passed away, but was never published, or even, as far as I can tell, finished. In various interviews she gave, she did confirm that she had started working on it.



LILITH'S BROOD/XENOGENESIS SERIES

Butler, Octavia E., Dawn. 1987, Aspect, ISBN 0446603775. This item is reviewed here.

Butler, Octavia E., Adulthood Rites. 1988, Aspect, ISBN 0446603783. This item is reviewed here.

Butler, Octavia E., Imago. 1989, Aspect, ISBN 0446603635. This item is reviewed here.

Butler, Octavia E., Lilith's Brood (omnibus edition). 2000, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 0446676101. This item is reviewed here.



SEED-TO-HARVEST/PATTERNIST SERIES

Please note that the internal chronology of these stories does not conform to the publishing date, which is how the individual books are listed.

Butler, Octavia E., Patternmaster. 1976, Aspect, ISBN 0446362816.

Butler, Octavia E., Mind of My Mind. 1977, Aspect, ISBN 0446361887.

Butler, Octavia E., Survivor. 1978, Signet, ISBN 0451086732. This particular novel, despite being a critical part of the Patternist Series, has been disavowed by the author and has never been made available for purchase since the original run. It is not collected in the omnibus edition either.

Butler, Octavia E., Wild Seed. 1980, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 0446676977. This item is reviewed here.

Butler, Octavia E., Clay's Ark. 1984, Aspect, ISBN 0446603708. This item is reviewed here.

Butler, Octavia E., Seed To Harvest (omnibus edition). 2000, Grand Central Publishing, ISBN 0446698903.



UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES

Butler, Octavia E., The Book of Martha. Date unknown.

Butler, Octavia E., Amnesty. Date unknown.



UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS

Butler, Octavia E. The Monophobic Response. In, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, edited by Sheree R. Thomas. New York: Warner, 2000.



LOST STORIES

According to Wikipedia Octavia Butler also wrote a story for Harlan Ellison's still-unpublished-after-thirty-three-years anthology, Last Dangerous Visions. The story is called Childfinder, and it has not yet been published anywhere.



SECONDARY SOURCES

BOOKS

Allison, Dorothy, Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology. 1990, Plume, ISBN 0452010454. Contains the essay, The Future of Females: Octavia Butler's Mother Lode.

Barr, Marlene, Ed. Future Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

Carby, Hazel. Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Barr, Marlene S. & Ruth Salvaggio, Suzy McKee Charnas, Octavia Butler, Joan D. Vinge (Starmont Reader's Guide, No 23). 1986, Borgo Press, ISBN 0916732924. NOTE: I have seen this work credited also to "M. Barr and R. Law. The listing here comes from Amazon.

Gale Group, The, Octavia E. Butler's "Bloodchild": A Study Guide from Gale's "Short Stories for Students". Vol. 6, Chapter 2, 2002, The Gale Group.

Gale Group, The, Octavia Butler's "Kindred": A Study Guide from Gale's "Novels for Students". Vol. 8, Chapter 7, 2002, The Gale Group.

Gale Group, The, Book Rags Kindred Study Guide. I know nothing about this work other than it exists.

Gale Group, The, Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower": A Study Guide from Gale's "Novels for Students". Vol. 21, Chapter 10, 2005, The Gale Group.

Larbalestier, Justine, ed., Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century. 2006, Wesleyan, ISBN 0819566764. Contains analysis of Butler's work, but does not focus on it.

Mayer, Sylvia, Ed. Restoring the Connection to the Natural World: Essays on the African American Environmental Imagination. Hamburg: LIT, 2003.

Merrick, Helen, and Tess Williams, eds. Women of Other Worlds: Excursions through Science Fiction and Feminism. Nedlands: Univ of Western Australia Press, 1999.

Eric S. Rabkin and Martin H. Greenberg, Eds. No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1983.

Smith, Karen Patricia, African-American Voices in Young Adult Literature: Tradition, Transition, Transformation. 1994, The Scarecrow Press, ISBN 0810842726. Contains an essay entitled Octavia Butler: New Designs for a Challenging Future.

Thomas, Sheree, Ed., Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, New York: Warner, 2000.



BOOKS TO BE PUBLISHED

Melzer, Patricia, I’ve been a woman I-don’t know-how-many-times': A Critical Tribute to the Work of Octavia E. Butler. This is a call for papers for a scholarly anthology. The call closes in 2007.



THESES AND DISSERTATIONS

Abdallah, Ayana Rehema, Africentric Transgressive Creativity: A Reader's Meditation on Octavia Butler. University of Iowa, 2001. DAI 62: 4161a.

Allen, Marlene Denise, Integration and Interracial Relationships in Two Novels by Octavia Butler. University of Georgia, 1996.

Boulter, Amanda, Speculative Feminisms: The Significance of Feminist Theory in the Science Fiction of Joanna Russ, James Tiptree, Jr., and Octavia Butler. Southhampton University (UK), 1996.

Causey, Vannetta Lynn, Rising Above the Din: Rhetorical Novelistic Discourse in American Literature [Mrs Rowson; Carl Sagan; Octavia E. Butler]. University of Texas, Arlington, 1999.

Coleman, Letetia F., Octavia E. Butler's Patternist Series: A Cultural Analysis. Temple University, 1997. DAI 58: 2201a.

Conway, Stephen, Borders, Scribes, and Subjects: Renegotiating the Boundaries of Subjectivity in the Novels of Neal Stephenson and Octavia E. Butler. Butler University, 1997.

Davis, Ben, Jr., History, Race, and Gender in the Science Fiction of Octavia Estelle Butler. Ohio State University, 1992.

Fiskio-Lasseter, Janet Elizabeth, Descending into the Flesh: Exploring Embodied Knowledge, Nonhuman Agency, and Ecocritical Theory [Merleau-Ponty, Solds, Octavia Butler, Uusula K. LeGuin]. University of Oregon, 2003.

Gant-Britton, Lisbeth, Women of Color Constructing Subjectivity Towards the Future: Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and Cynthia Kadohata. UCLA, 1997.

Hall, Debra K., New Synthesis for Science Fiction, A: The Fiction of Octavia Butler. Eastern New Mexico University, 1992.

Hampton, Gregory Jerome, Changing Bodies: Some Matters of the Body in the Fiction of Octavia E. Butler. Duke University, 1999.

Holmgren Troy, Maria, In the First Person and In the House: The House Chronotrope in Four Works by American women Writers [Octavia Butler]. Uppsala University (Sweden), 1999.

Jenks, Darrell Allan, Ethics in Science Fiction: Butler, Wells, and Stapledon. Salve Regina University, 2000. DAI 61: 604a.

Krell, Lori A., Anarchy or Liberty: The Quest for Freedom in the Science Fiction of Octavia Butler. Southwest Texas State University, 2002.

Lefevre, Jocelyn, Caught in the Mirror: Fictional Representations of 'Cyborgs' and 'Serials' in Postmodern American Technoculture [Donna J. Haraway, James Tiptree, Jr., Vonda McIntyre, Octavia E. Butler, Gordon Lish]. University of Ottowa, 2002. MAI 41:1274

McGee, Robyn Marie, Significance of Setting in Selected Fiction of Octavia Butler. California State University, Dominguez Hills, 2001. MAI 40:567

Miller, James Edward, Postmodernism and Utopia: Dystopian/Utopian Themes in the Works of Don DeLillo, Harold Jaffe, and Octavia Butler. Bowling Green State University, 1997. DAI 59: 173a

Mitchell, Angelyn, Signifying Women: Visions and Revisions of Slavery in Octavia Butler's Kindred, Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose, and Toni Morrison's Beloved. Howard University, 1992.

Mur, Cindy Anne, Alien in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis, The. San Diego State University, 1997.

Nichols, Capper E., Feminist Critical Utopia: Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy. San Diego State University, 1990.

Smith, Malaika Daneh, African American Heroine in Octavia Butler's Wild Seed and Parable of the Sower, The. UCLA, 1994.

Spaulding, Asa Timothy, III, Octavia E. Butler's and Samuel R. Delany's Use of Science Fiction as Cultural Critique. University of North Carolina, Chappel Hill, 1994.

Woolfork, Lisa, Trauma and Racia Difference in Twentieth-Century American Literature [Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Octavia Butler; Toomer]. University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2000.



SCHOLARLY ARTICLES

Agusti, Clara Escoda, The relationship between community and subjectivity in Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower. September 22, 2005, in Extrapolation.

Ampadu, Lena, Racial, Gendered, and Geographical Spaces in Octavia Butler's Kindred. CEAMagazine: A Journal of the College English Association, Middle Atlantic Group (2004): 70-78.

Anderson, Crystal S., 'The Girl Isn't White': New Racial Dimensions in Octavia Butler's Survivor. Extrapolation (Spring 2006): 35-50.

Andreolle, Donna Spalding, Utopias of old, solutions for the new millennium: a comparative study of Christian fundamentalism in M.K. Wren's A Gift Upon the Shore and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. March 22, 2001, in Utopian Studies.

Baccolini, Raffaella. Gender and Genre in the Feminist Critical Dystopias of Katherine Burdekin, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler. In, Future Females, The Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism. Ed. Marleen S. Barr. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000.

Buckman, Alyson, 'What Good Is All This to Black People?' Octavia Butler's Reconstruction of Corporeality. Femspec (2004): 201-18.

DeGraw, Sharon, 'The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same': Gender and Sexuality in Octavia Butler's Oeuvre. Femspec (2004): 219-38.

Foster, Frances S., Octavia Butler's Black Female Future Fiction. 1982, in Extrapolation 23 (1982): pages 37-49.

Foster, Guy Mark, "Do I look like someone you can come home to from where you may be going?": re-mapping interracial anxiety in Octavia Butler's Kindred. March 22, 2007, in African American Review.

Friend, Beverly. Time Travel as a Feminist Didactic in Works by Phyllis Eisenstein, Marlys Millhiser and Octavia Butler. Extarpolation Volume 23, Number 1 (Spring 1982): pages 50-55.

Gant-Britton, Lisbeth. Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower: One Alternative to a Futureless Future. In, Women of Other Worlds: Excursions through Science Fiction and Feminism. Ed. Helen Merrick and Tess Williams. Nedlands: Univ of Western Australia Press, 1999.

Gomez, Jewelle. Black Women Heroes: Here's Reality, Where's the Fiction? Black Scholar (1986): 8-13.

Govan, Sandra, Connections, Links, and Extended Networks: Paterns in Octavia Butler's Science Fiction. Black American Literature Forum 18.2 (Spring 1984): 82–87.

Govan, Sandra, Homage to Tradition: Octavia Butler Renovates the Historical Novel. MELUS 13.1–2 (Spring-Summer 1986): 79–96.

Govan, Sandra Y. Notable Black American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1992.

Govan, Sandra. Connections, Links, and Extended Networks: Patterns in Octavia Butler's Science Fiction. Black American Literature Forum (1984): 82-87.

Hairston, Andrea, Octavia Butler-Praise Song to a Prophetic Artist in Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (listed above). Edited by Justine Larbalestier. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2006.

Hampton, Gregory J., Migration and Capital of the Body: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. CLA Journal (September 2005): 56-73.

Hampton, Gregory Jerome and Wanda M. Brooks, Octavia Butler and Virginia Hamilton: Black Women Writers and Science Fiction. English Journal (Summer 2003): 70-74.

Holden, Rebecca J., The High Costs of Cyborg Survival: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy. Foundation: the International Review of Science Fiction 72 (Spring 1998): 49–56; this issue contains other articles on Butler.

Lesniak, James G. Contemporary Authors. New Revision Series (v. 38 ). Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1993.

Levy, Michael. Green SF and Eco Feminism. Originally published in IAFA Newsletter, Spring 1989 issues. Reprinted in Robert Collins and Robert Latham, editors, Science Fiction and Fantasy book Review Annual, 1989 Edition (Westport, CN: Meckler, 1990). Review article of recent work by Octavia Butler, Nancy Kress, Pamela Sargent, and Sheri S. Tepper.

Locher, Frances Carol. Contemporary Authors. (v. 73-76). Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1978.

Luckhusrt, Roger. Horror and Beauty in Rare Combination: The Miscegenate Fictions of Octavia Butler. Women: a cultural review. v. 7, n. 1, pages 28-34.

Mayer, Sylvia. Genre and Environmentalism: Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Speculative Fiction, and the African American Slave Narrative. In, Restoring the Connection to the Natural World: Essays on the African American Environmental Imagination. Ed. Sylvia Mayer. Hamburg: LIT, 2003.

McCoy, Beth, Walking the 5: Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower BMA: The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review (Fall 2003): 223-34.

McTyre, Robert E. Octavia Butler: Black America's first lady of science fiction. Michigan Chronicle, April 26, 1994, pp. PG.

Miller, Jim, Post-Apocalyptic Hoping: Octavia Butler's Dystopian/Utopian Vision. Science Fiction Studies 25:2 (75) (July 1998): 336–360

Mixon, Veronica, Futurist Woman: Octavia Butler. Essence, Apr. 1979, 12, 15.

Raffel, Burton. Genre to the Rear, Race and Gender to the Fore: The Novels of Octavia E. Butler. Literary Review, v.38, April 1, 1995, p. 454.

Reed, Brian K., Behold the Woman: The Imaginary Wife in Octavia Butler's Kindred. CLA Journal (September 2003): 66-74.

Salvaggio, Ruth. Octavia Butler and the Black Science Fiction Heroine. Black American Literature Forum. Vol 18, number 2 (1984): pages 78-81.

Sands, Peter, Octavia Butler's Chiastic Cannibalistics. January 1, 2001, in Utopian Studies. Here is a link to a free copy of the article. There is a bibliography.

Shinn, Thelma, The Wise Witches: Black Women Mentors in the Fiction of Octavia E. Butler, in Conjuring: Black Women, Fiction, and Literary Tradition, eds. Marjorie Pryse and Hortense J. Spillers, 1985, pp. 203–215.

Steinberg, Marc, Inverting history in Octavia Butler's postmodern slave narrative. September 22, 2004, in African American Review.

Stevenson, Rosemary. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Pub., 1993, pp. 208-210.

Sturgis, Amy H., The parables of Octavia Butler: a science-fiction writer's rich libertarian legacy. June, 2006, in Reason.

Walker, Alison Tara, Destabilizing order, challenging history: Octavia Butler, Deleuze and Guattari, and affective beginnings. March 22, 2005, in Extrapolation.

Warfield, Angela. Reassessing the Utopian Novel: Octavia Butler, Jacques Derrida, and the Impossible Future of Utopia. Obsidian III (2005-06): 61.

Weixlmann, Joe, An Octavia E. Butler Bibliography. Black American Literature Forum 18.2 (Spring 1984): 88–89.

Wood, Sarah, Subversion through Inclusion: Octavia Butler's Interrogation of Religion in Xenogenesis and Wild Seed. Femspec (2005): 87-99

Yu, Jeboon, The Representation of Inappropriate/d Others: The Epistemology of Donna Haraway's Cyborg Feminism and Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Series. Journal of English Language and Literature/Yongo Yongmunhak (2004): 759-77.



INTERVIEWS

Beal, Frances M., Black Scholar Interview with Octavia Butler: Black Women and the Science Fiction Genre, in Black Scholar 17.2 (Mar.-Apr. 1986): 14–18.

Cecilia Tan interview. Date Unknown.

Interview with Charlie Rose on DVD. June 1, 2000.

Fry, Joan. An Interview With Octavia Butler. Poets and Writers Magazine. March/April 1997, pages 58-69.

Indy Media interview. Date unknown.

Johnson, Rebecca O. African American Feminist Science Fiction. Sojourner v. 19, n. 6 (February 1994), pages 12-14.

Kenan, Randall, An Interview with Octavia E. Butler, in Callaloo 14.2 (1991): 495–504.

Locus Magazine interview. Date Unknown.

McCaffery, Larry, Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers. 1991, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0252061403. This is a long work that includes an interview of Butler.

NPR Interview. September 1, 2001.

Indy Media interview. Date unknown.

Rowell, Charles H. An interview with Octavia Butler. Callaloo. 20:1 (1997). 47.

Josh Saunders interview, for In Motion Magazine. Date Unknown.

Writers & Books interview, in association with Kindred. Date Unknown.



BIOGRAPHY/REMEMBERENCES

Gale Reference Team, Contemporary Authors Online, Octavia Butler.

NPR Rememberence .

Amardeep Singh memorial site.


OUP biography site.



FAN SITES

Yahoo Groups fan site.

Blog fan site. There are lots of links here to other items of interest.



TEACHING LINKS

Web English Teacher page.

OEB Teacher Resource File page.



OTHER

A Panel Discussion with Octavia Butler, moderated by Arthur Cover, at UCLA, 01/26/2002.

Octavia tells a story.

Ask.com page.

Amateur Essay about Butler that is quite interesting.

Student film taken from Dawn. We definately need more of this! I have heard that Speech Sounds was adapted for the ABC limited series Masters of Science Fiction, but I have not seen the episode.

WisCon 31 panel report about comparing other authors to Octavia Butler.

Copyright © 2007, 2008 by Gregory Tidwell
Last edited by Omphalos on Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:19 pm, edited 18 times in total.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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Omphalos
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Post by Omphalos »

Work is still continuing on this. I suspect it will also be a "work in progress" for as long as I decide to update it. I know that the style is off in a bunch of entries. I just wanted to get them up for now, so Ill get to fixing them later. As usual, please let me know if you have any comments, corrections, criticisms, laudations, etc., etc. BTW, I do have about thirty more items to pu in now.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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Omphalos
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Post by Omphalos »

Update: This thing is going slower than I planned. I have had pretty good luck getting individual permissions to post articles and other things in the FH bibliography. Actually, I currently have permission for all but two items. With this bibliography though, not so much luck.

Anyway, Ive noticed lots of new people surfing this thread lately, so if you come here from somewhere else and want to participate, or even just post, feel free to join up! No pressure though, if you are happy lurking, at least send me an e-mail or something so that we can get acquainted and talk about the brilliant Octavia Butler.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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Omphalos
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Post by Omphalos »

Parable of the Talents review added.
Something is about to happen, Hal. Something wonderful!

-James C. Harwood, Science Fiction Writer, Straight (March 5, 1956 - May 25, 2010)



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