2022 FYE Summer Reading
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Check out this page for ways to engage with Butler’s Parable of the Sower and to connect with Skidmore faculty, staff, and fellow students in this process. We’ll be adding additional content to the page over the summer, so check back to see what’s new!
Octavia Butler addresses issues head on that many writers would avoid. In Parable of the Sower (1993), set in 2025, she trusts and places reimagining the world in the hands of a young African American woman. Are we brave enough to do the same? Is caring for others, sharing what we have, and understanding the importance of interconnectedness a superpower? Can we also reimagine the world differently? And for the better of all?A
About Professor Davidson:
Adenike Marie Davidson is a professor of English and Gender Studies at Delaware State University. Prior to arriving at DSU in 2013, Professor Davidson taught at Fisk University and the University of Central Florida. She earned her undergraduate degree in English from College of the Holy Cross, a MA in African American Studies from UCLA, and her doctorate in English from the University of Maryland, College Park. Davidson is the author of The Black Nation Novel: Imagining Homeplaces in Early African American Literature and has written several journal articles. She is currently researching spiritual and contemplative practices that address the needs of racial and social justice work; these include theoretical, physical, and creative methods, beyond the capitalized mantra of 'self-care/self-love.' She seeks to connect literature and writing as a foundation for imagining new ways of being in the world.
About the book
Parable of the Sower was written in 1993 by award-winning fiction writer, Octavia E. Butler, who died in 2006. Her book, however, has found new life! It landed on the New York Times List of Best Sellers for the first time in 2020—more than 25 years after its first publication! It is a deeply interdisciplinary exploration of empathy and community in a world falling apart, and we think that it will leave you thinking in new ways about how we can survive and even flourish in the face of problems bigger than ourselves.
The story is told through the eyes of 15-year-old Lauren Olamina, who is living with her family in a suburb of Los Angeles in the year 2024. Things are hard in and around her and her community; physical and sexual assault and murder lurk just outside the neighborhood walls and press in on Lauren and her family more and more by the day. As a caution, please note that there are many references to and some descriptions of sexual assault and murder in the story. Nevertheless, the book tells a story of self-discovery and new beginnings.
Essays and reflection
BY REBECCA MCNAMARA, ASSOCIATE CURATOR, THE FRANCES YOUNG TANG TEACHING MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY | As an art curator, I was interested that Olamina must see another person to share—and has no choice once she sees. This sensorial specificity offers respite; she can hide from screams of agony and avoid pain. We, too, often hide from others' hardship, and sometimes their joy as well.- BY PATRICE MALATESTINIC, LECTURER OF MUSIC AND PRIVATE MUSIC INSTRUCTOR | Butler’s novel reinforces my belief that, not only artists and creatives, but, all humans are responsible to make the personal choices that create their work, their lives and their world. When they are prevented from doing so, by themselves or others, or by conditions or disparities, all humanity suffers.
- BY ELIZA KENT, PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES | At the heart of Parable of the Sower (1993) is a religion, Earthseed, crafted with painstaking care by the novel’s 15-year old protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina. Lauren is a prophetess who derives the verses that make up Earthseeed: The Books of the Living not from divine revelation, but from deep reflection on experience.
- BY JULIA ROUTBORT BASKIN, ASSOCIATE DEAN OF STUDENT AFFAIRS, HEALTH AND WELLNESS | Parable of the Sower asks questions I urgently need answers to, answers I cannot find on my own. Redwoods burning, authoritarian Presidential candidates promising to return America to a mythical Christian past, big box stores guarded by men carrying automatic rifles, the erosion of democracy and supply chains - the world in the novel is horrific, plausible and just a half-step away from our own.
- BY JOHN MICHAEL DIRESTA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF THEATER | Theatrical adaptations of literary source material allow artists and audiences to reconsider the relevance of period texts in our contemporary world. In adapting and directing this passage from Parable of the Sower as a zoom play, I worked with actors Chavon Patterson ’24 and Gigi Brown ’24 to examine the resonance of this 20th Century work today.
- BY LISA JACKSON-SCHEBETTA, CHAIR AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THEATER | In Parable of the Sower, fire is a destroyer of worlds. Water, in contrast, is a creator.
- BY MARY CRONE ODEKON, PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS | If you’ve never seen the utopian space-colony art of the 1970’s (or if you just want to look at it again), try searching “Stanford torus” or “O’Neill cylinder.”
- BY GREG SPINNER, TEACHING PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES | As a long-time student of religion, I understand how closely entwined religion is with suffering, whether religion prompts its acceptance or promotes its avoidance. Lauren’s vision for Earthseed emerges from a desperate alchemy of exigency and empathy, a never perfect balance between the needs of the self and the ‘sacrifices’ one is willing to make for others.
- BY RODRIGO SCHNEIDER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS | In the parable of the sower, Jesus teaches his disciples that as the word of God is preached to people, some will disregard it. Some are going to be excited about it, but as soon as sacrifices are demanded from them, they will give it up. Some will learn about the word, but the attractiveness of the secular world will keep them busy and far from following it.
Resources
- The exhibition "Where Words Falter: Art and Empathy" will be on view at the Tang Teaching Museum from July 9, 2022 through December 30, 2022. Learn more
- Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, an opera by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon Learn more
- Octavia's Parables, a podcast by Adrienne Maree Brown and Toshi Reagon Learn more and listen
- Film adaptation coming soon. Read the story by Deadline