AFRICAN AMERICAN UTOPIAN CRITIQUES: THE SCIENCE FICTION OF GEORGE SCHUYLER, SAMUEL DELANY, AND OCTAVIA BUTLER

by Vandna Kaur Gill B.A., May 2003, University of Virginia

A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts & Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

January 30, 2006

Thesis directed by Jennifer James Assistant Professor of English

Chapter 1: Introduction In an article entitled Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction Charles R. Saunders writes, Science fiction serves as the mythology of our technological cultureWe [blacks] need to contribute to our cultures overall mythology, and provide alternatives to the stereotypes that continue to plague us within that mythology (Thomas 404). Twentieth century African American science fiction authors provide such alternatives by engaging with and reacting to the genre of utopian fiction, typically written today within an explicitly science-fictional context, through three distinct frameworks: anti-utopia, heterotopia, and dystopia (Freedman 63). George Schuylers Black No More (1931) is often seen as an anti-utopian text, a critique of utopianism; the utopian ideal being, in this case, an America free from the race problem. In Samuel Delanys ambiguous heterotopia, Trouble on Triton (1976), identity, particularly in the form of gender and sexual preference, is negotiable, and the utopian drive is questioned. For those unfamiliar with the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia, Robert Reid-Pharr aptly defines it, in his article Disseminating Heterotopia, as a prophetic vision of society that allows for the presence of constant 2

change and improvisation (348). It is a space in which the emphasis is always on the possibility of possibilities and can be seen as a mix of utopian escapism and turning virtual possibilities into reality1 (Reid-Pharr 348). However, Delanys use of the term heterotopia in his description of Triton distinguishes it from a straightforward utopia because the former implies disorder while the latter implies order (Nilon 67). Finally, Octavia Butler presents readers with a negative utopia, also known as dystopia, in Parable of the Sower (1993), an apocalyptic portrayal of twenty-first century America under a corporate, right-wing utopia. Expanding on an idea presented by Peter G. Stillman, I propose that the protagonists of all three of these African American counter-utopian science fiction novels are not only the embodiment of the subversion of differences, but also represent ways of getting outside the body, escaping its limits, whether through race change, sex change, or hyperempathy (28). However, these three methods of escaping the limits of the body have varying results for the individual protagonists and, consequently, illustrate different yet useful approaches to discussing the limits of utopia and, in the case of Parable of the Sower, the possibility of an alternate, more conscientious utopia. I begin by delineating the relevance of two African American novels written in the late nineteenth century: Of One Blood, which is considered a proto-science fiction text, and Iola Leroy, which is a prime example of an early African American utopianthemed novel. Then, I proceed to individual sections on each of the three twentieth century novels that form the crux of my argument, with in-depth definitions of the terms anti-utopia, heterotopia, and dystopia as well as plot summaries. Finally, I discuss why it is significant that each of the three science fiction authors Schuyler, Delany, and Butler 3

 use the notion of escaping the bodys limits to convey different messages about the limits of utopian societies.

Chapter 2: The Roots of African American Science Fiction: Utopian Texts In order to understand the importance of these counter-utopian novels, we must first examine the roots of African American science fiction in the utopian and alternative history texts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, Pauline Hopkinss Of One Blood (1903) and Frances E.W. Harpers Iola Leroy (1892) can be seen as formative texts, setting the stage for later African American speculative and science fiction novels that imagine alternative societies. Carl Freedman, a prominent science fiction critic, writes of utopia that it is in one senseelsewhere, always escaping our actual horizons, [yet]in another and no less important sense [it is] inscribed in the innermost core of our being (64). At its most basic level, utopia is a non-existent society, which has come to be equated with a perfect society, a connection that many science fiction and utopia scholars like Lyman Sargent would refute (Moylan 74). Controversy aside, perhaps the most suitable working definition of utopia is the one set forth by Ruth Levitas in 1990: [Utopia] is a social construct which arises not from a natural impulse subject to social mediation, but as a socially constructed response to an 5

equally socially constructed gap between the needs and wants generated by a particular society and the satisfactions available to and distributed by it. (Levitas, qtd. in Moylan 86) For the purpose of my argument, I consider utopia to be a socially constructed response to a socially constructed gap, as Levitas defines it; however, I also believe that the concept of utopia is imbued with an element of striving toward an ideal, not necessarily an ideal or perfect society overall, but elements of ideal behavior, situations, and possibilities. Iola Leroy, the title character of Harpers utopian novel, grows up as a privileged, proslavery Southern belle (Fabi 56). After her aristocratic, white father dies, Iola discovers that her mother was actually a mulatta slave. Since her mother was never officially freed, Iola and her siblings, Harry and Gracie, are legally considered slaves according to an antebellum policy in the South that insisted children inherit their mothers condition. Iola, in the tragic mulatta tradition, ends up being sold as a slave but is subsequently rescued by Northern troops at the onset of the Civil War. In the remainder of the novel, Harper follows the protagonists adventures after she decides to cast her lot with the black race, including experiences that lead Iola to question her core values (Fabi 56). Giulia Fabi gives the following insight on Iolas change of heart (and mind): [W]hereas formerly blacks were the objects of her pity, blackness becomes a constitutive element of her identity. Iolas condition undergoes a process of change that dramatizes the tensions between the

representation of blacks as the objects of racial discrimination and the subjects of their own lives. (57) Iola comes to embrace all that she had formerly shunned. Through the statements and actions of Iola, blackness shifts from a visible, ostensibly unambiguous signifier of inferiority and oppression [to] a cultural force of social change, a grand social mission to construct a new, more egalitarian civilization (Fabi 60). Specifically, in the last chapter of the novel, we find that Iola has begun her community work, educating children and mothers, while other characters have become involved in reform movements, opening schools, defying social dictates, and distributing land to poor laborers in the South. The fact that the novel is framed by Harpers vision of an alternative, better social system and ends with the articulation of the institutions and principles that will inform the new ideal social order she is proposing makes Iola Leroy an undeniably utopian text (Fabi 56). Hope abounds in the novel and Iola is depicted as having a rapt and far-off look in her eye, as if she were looking beyond the present pain to a brighter future for the race with which she [is] identified, feeling the grandeur of a divine commission to labor for its uplifting (Harper 219-220). The elements of utopian social order that Harper incorporates into Iola Leroy present a viable, rational, Christian alternative to the dystopian post-Reconstruction reality of segregation and violence described elsewhere in the novel (Fabi 63). The presentation of a utopian alternative to a dystopian reality reemerges in Butlers Parable of the Sower, a century after the publication of Iola Leroy. Though similar to Iola Leroy in its espousal of utopian devices, Of One Blood gives the reader a taste of the paranormal occurrences characteristic of fantasy and science fiction. Hopkinss novel tells the story of Harvard medical student Reuel Briggs, 7

a man of unspecified racial origins (but a complexion light enough to pass for white) with no known relatives, who is also a close student of what might be termed absurdities of supernatural phenomena or mysticism (Hopkins 2). After a series of serendipitous encounters, Reuel falls in love with Dianthe Lusk, an African American singer, who has also, unfortunately, caught the eye of Reuels rich friend, Aubrey Livingston. Advancing far afield in the mysterious regions of science, Reuel has stumbled upon the solution of one of lifes problems: the reanimation of the body after seeming death (Hopkins 29). Putting his knowledge and powers to work, Reuel miraculously revives Dianthe from the dead after an accident lands her in the hospital and, soon after, marries her. He fears, however, that he will not be able to provide a stable life for her, particularly since he has been inexplicably rejected from recent job offers. Aubrey, who has recently discovered that Reuel is hiding his black heritage, believes Reuel has been the victim of racial prejudice. Aubrey takes advantage of the situation, persuading Reuel to go on an archaeological expedition to Africa, as the resident medical expert, in search of the ancient civilization of Meroe. Aubrey reassures Reuel that in Africa he will be paid a large sum for his services and will have the chance to discover great treasure in the ancient, buried cities of Ethiopia, not to mention the good it will do to the Negro race if it proves the success in discovery that scholars predict (Hopkins 59). While Reuel is away, Aubrey writes him a letter falsely claiming Dianthe has died and also manages to convince Dianthe that Reuel has died. This sly maneuver allows Aubrey to take Reuels place as Dianthes husband. On the expedition, Reuel is kidnapped while exploring the recesses of the Great Pyramid and finds himself in the Hidden City of Telassar, a magnificent civilization that has survived in seclusion into 8

the present (Japtok 405). In Telassar, he is greeted with the following statement, Thou art Ergamenes the long-looked-for king of Ethiopia, for whose reception this city was built! (Hopkins 122). Thus, Reuel discovers his true identity as a descendant of the royal line of Telassar, destined to lead his people in the restoration of Ethiopia: If what he heard were true, how great a destiny was his! He had carefully hidden his Ethiopian extraction from the knowledge of the world. It was a tradition among those who had known him in childhood that he was descended from a race of African kings. He remembered his mother well. From her he had inherited his mysticism and occult powers. (Hopkins 125) Reuel returns to America to avenge the wrongs done to him by Aubrey and to see for himself whether Dianthe is still alive. In the meantime, Dianthe is told that both Reuel and Aubrey are actually her brothers and that they are all descended from Mira, a slave of [Aubreys wealthy father], who did not know that Aubrey had been exchanged at birth by Mira for his white son (Japtok 405). Hence, all [three] come from the same royal line and are of one blood (Japtok 405). Dianthe attempts to poison Aubrey, but instead, Aubrey forces her to drink the poison, which thankfully does not kill her until she has had a chance to reunite with Reuel. Aubrey does not survive long after this incident, however, as he is induced to commit suicide by Reuels mesmeric command (Japtok 405). Believing Aubrey has gotten what he deserves, Reuel returns to Telassar, where he spends his days in teaching his people all that he has learned in years of contact with modern culture (Hopkins 193). As Fabi states in Passing and the Rise of the African American Novel, it has often been suggested that African American authors, because of their difficult historical 9

circumstances, could not imagine a perfect future and, hence, simply did not write utopian novels. However, Fabi gives compelling reasons why this is not the case. She insists that because of the popularity of the utopian novel at the turn of the century, it is hard to believe that African American authors would not have engaged with this genre, notably because it had become an important playground for the racialist, eugenist, and segregationalist discourse of white writers (Fabi 45). In fact, it became imperative for black authors to use their novels and other writings to dispel widely disseminated pseudoscientific theories on race. Susan Gillman discusses the importance of Hopkinss novel in doing just that: [Of One Blood] represents the unconscious, operating through both Reuels blood inheritance and the occult sciences he studiesas racially evolutive, that is, the means of the restoration of the formerly great Ethiopian race. As such a tool of evolutionary progress for the race, Hopkinss unconscious may be read as a response to the debate within evolutionary theory over so-called black degeneracy, the view that postbellum blacks and especially mulattoes would not survive the Darwinian social struggle but would revert to African savagery and eventually die out as a race. Hopkinss Ethiopianist vision explicitly rewrites the evolutionary narrative of reversion to savagery by predicating the prophetic future of the black race directly upon its early greatness. (Gillman 74) Of One Blood provides African Americans with a usable, livable past that allows for the development of a healthy self-image and adequate recognition for present and past 10

accomplishments (Japtok 403). However, as Martin Japtok argues, Hopkinss use of evolutionary terminology, despite her rewriting of prominent race theories, still led her to fall into the Darwinist trap: Making the worth of a people dependent on technological and cultural accomplishments means following the same quasi-Darwinian logic that served nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperialists to justify their ventures (403). Despite the conflicting results of her endeavor, Hopkins did, unlike many of her contemporaries, make a sincere effort to put an alternative history out there for African Americans. In addition to Hopkins, George Schuyler, who was primarily a journalist (a novelist on the side), wrote scathing yet insightful pieces from the 1920s onward that appeared in publications like The American Mercury, critiquing prevalent scientific and social misconceptions about African Americans. In her introduction to Of One Blood, Deborah McDowell writes: [W]hy fit a tale of genealogy, race, and miscegenation to utopian contours? Why deploy the language, scenes, and tropes of paranormal fads mesmerism, spiritualism, automatic writing, apparitions, and suspended animation to explore the historically pressing, and often violent, expressions of racism in Jim Crow America? The answer to such a question seems much less baffling when it is read as fantasy, utopian in stripe, of a fully self-sustaining black community existing in the ancient past, meant to prefigure the reincarnation of the same such community in present-day America. (McDowell, in Hopkins xvi) Reading Of One Blood as a utopian text allows us to view Hopkins as a social visionary, presenting an alternative history of Ethiopian magnificence that is meant to foster black 11

pride by linking African Americans to their African past and, more importantly, promising them a future in Africa and America. Hopkinss use of science fiction elements to discuss topics such as racism and miscegenation begins to make sense when we consider the era in which she was writing. During the late nineteenth century, the American cultural imagination was occupied with the fantasy of whiteness, which, though it took on a naturalized character in scientific discourse, was undoubtedly paranormal in the extreme (McDowell, in Hopkins xx). If we look at it this way, Hopkins can be seen as a science fiction author writing about (and critiquing) the science fiction world in which she lived. In the face of this fantasy of whiteness, Hopkins questions normative theories on race through the character of Professor Stone, leader of the African expedition, who states: It is a fact that Egypt drew from Ethiopia all the arts, sciences, and knowledge of which she was mistressI have even thoughtthat black was the original color of man in prehistoric timesWhat puzzles me is not the origin of the Blacks, but of the Whitesall records of historyunite in placing the Ethiopian as the primal race. (Hopkins 8788) By inverting commonplace beliefs, Hopkins challenges the status quo and redefines utopia as a restoration of the brotherhood of all races. Using the notion of race travel, essentially an extraordinary dislocation of [a racial] point of view, as the basis of her argument, Fabi discusses Of One Blood and Iola Leroy as utopian novels that foreground and defamiliarize the existence of parallel black and white worlds that are societally differentiated by race, class, gender, and caste (Fabi 12

47). The two novels focus on an instance of racial displacement, which, for the protagonist, leads to a new awareness of his or her subject position and a realization of the inevitable intersections of the black and white worlds he or she inhabits (Fabi 57). But what are we to make of the fact that both Hopkins and Harper use white black protagonists in constructing their utopian visions? Race travel seems to be an option only for those who are not limited by their overtly marked, black bodies in nineteenth century America. The need to escape the marked body, whether restricted by the boundaries of race, gender, disability, or disfigurement has historically been accompanied by a catch-22 situation, in which the physical condition of such a body invites both sympathy and disdain. For example, the physical stigmata of slavery, resulting from abuse and hard labor, were often used to attract attention and support for the abolitionist cause, yet, paradoxically, also ended up backing racist beliefs about the physical, mental, and emotional inferiority of blacks to whites (Putzi 1). Given this context, it is not surprising that Hopkins and Harper do not present the prospect of a truly black future in their novels. Both authors seem to acknowledge that the catch-22 situation must be circumvented and that miscegenation, as depicted through white black characters, is a more fitting trope for what they hope to illustrate to their readers the need for blacks and whites to realize that they already, by virtue of circumstances, lead interconnected lives and that they need to work together to realize any sort of utopian imaginings. What makes utopian works written by black authors different from those written by their white counterparts? Fabi gives the following explanation: African American authors adopted but also adapted in important ways the prescriptive pattern of the utopian genre to their fictional needs. Less 13

convinced of the liberatory potential of technological progress than their white counterparts, African American utopian writers focused on the process of individual and collective ideological change that would lead to utopia rather than on the accomplished perfection of utopia itself. Thus, African American utopias are characterized by a radical this-worldliness (Fabi 46, italics added). It is important to keep in mind that Fabis claim about the pervasiveness of African American distrust in science as liberation is not all-inclusive. There were, in fact, African Americans who did believe that technological progress was a promising means of escaping the black body and, consequently, approaching utopia. Prominent black figures like W.E.B. DuBois, Thomas Wyatt Turner (biologist and professor), and Marcus Garvey took to hereditarian thinking and the theory of eugenics, though these ideas were obviously intertwined with disparaging notions of scientific racialism. To illustrate the extent to which racialism became codified in the scientific community, I present the example of nineteenth century white physician and race theorist, Samuel Cartwright, who claimed to have discovered the existence of a disease peculiar to negroes that he named dyssthesia thiopica (qtd. in Brown 390-392). Cartwright speculated that a lack of properly oxygenated blood accounted for the supposed torpor of intellect and insensibility of blacks (qtd. in Brown 390-392). Unlike Cartwright and other white eugenicists, however, DuBois, Turner, and Garvey did not subscribe to the notion of black inferiority. Instead, they believed that eugenic intervention would first equilibrate the various races, then allow all races to improve simultaneously, instead of improv[ing] one racial group ahead of all others (Dorr 1, italics added). Of the three, 14

Turner most explicitly espoused eugenics as a means of uplifting the race to meet white norms (Dorr 2). He reasoned that if it could be proved that blacks and whites were genetically similar, blacks could disprove white claims of their inherent superiority (Dorr 2). According to Gregory Dorr, Turner adhered to conventional eugenic notions of fitness, even as he molded them to serve a liberatory function for African Americans (2). By linking genetic defectiveness to direct inheritance instead of devolution, he distanced normal fit blacks from unfit [feebleminded] blacks and whites (Dorr 2). Turner believed eugenics could benefit the entire human race by reducing the number of defectives among all races and populations (Dorr 3). Eventually most African Americans, including Turner himself, realized that instead of fighting fire with fire, they were simply adding fuel to the fire by advocating theories that were often used against them for racist and morally reprehensible purposes. This brings me back to Fabis commentary on the effectiveness of ideological change over a reliance on science and technology in altering American opinion. This is a sentiment we find not only in African American utopian fiction, but in African American counter-utopian fiction as well. For example, Black No More tackles the pertinent issue of race relations in twentieth century America and pays particular attention to actively changing the stereotypical, narrow-minded perceptions of white and black readers. Rather than presenting an idyllic race-free world, Schuyler focuses on the complications that persist even when technology levels the racial playing field. Parable of the Sower functions in a similar manner by insisting that technological progress goes hand-in-hand with corporations that are eager to monopolize its benefits, merely widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots. 15

Jerry Phillips speaks to the importance of progressive writing in linking us not only with our past but inevitably with our future as well. He believes it is the writers responsibility to restore dynamic possibility to social processes that seem static, permanent, and untranscendable (Philips 299). Through the exploration of possible worlds and intuitions of the future that critique the present, the writer can recover purposive human time, giving us the sense that history does not simply happen to us, but is instead ours to make (Philips 299). It is precisely this sense of responsibility that serves as a common thread linking turn-of-the-century African American utopian texts to twentieth century counter-utopian texts. In particular, there is the moral responsibility we find addressed in the writings of Octavia Butler, who, like other dystopian authors, seeks to map, warn, and hope by intensifying dangerous trends already existent in contemporary society (Stillman 15). Butlers intention is to encourage readers to be proactive in preventing possible dystopian futures. As part of her message, Butler, much like her predecessors, Hopkins and Harper, presents a critique [of] laws and practices that threaten people of color and other marginalized peoples (Grayson 17). It is quite fitting, then, that [t]he condition of being alien and alienated, speaks, in a sense, to the way in which being black in America is a science fiction experience (Dery, qtd. in Grayson 9). In the preface to an interview with Samuel Delany, Mark Dery elaborates on this idea of the black science fiction experience: African Americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but no less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to 16

bear on black bodies (branding, forced sterilization, the Tuskegee experiment, and tasers come readily to mind). (Dery 180) Though African American science fiction may seem a contradiction of terms to some, the connection between experience and writing makes it not only possible but also necessary for such a genre to exist. According to Robert Elliot Fox, it was inevitable that black writing would sooner or later engage [the] trend [of science fiction] not only because black literatures parameters have been constantly broadening, but because blacks especially have a critical stake in future worlds (Fox, Conscientious 94, italics added). After all, African Americans have constantlyhad to struggle to transform dreams into realities, to redeem, as it were, the core of possibility within fantasy (Fox, Conscientious 94). In order to ensure that the results of these struggles are carried forth and acknowledged generations from now, it is pivotal for African Americans to write themselves into the future. In Agency, Race and Utopia, Jesse Rhines makes the following point about literary utopias, referencing social scientist William Nichols: Utopian imaginings are rooted in divergent evaluations of both the past and the present. And attempts to imagine the future or to predict alternative futuresare closely linked to how we understand the past; and the vantage point from which the observer looks either forward or backward is crucial. (Rhines 2) Both Hopkins and Harper express a deep concern for the future, a concern that stems from a healthy skepticism about the past and the present. Iola specifies that her fears concerning the future of black men and women in America arise [f]rom the unfortunate 17

conditions which slavery has entailed upon [the South], where she returns as a teacher and social activist (Harper 259). Similarly, Reuel Briggs, upon returning to the Hidden City of Telassar in Ethiopia, viewswith serious apprehension, the advance of mighty nations penetrating the dark, mysterious forests of his native land. Where will it stop? he sadly questions. What will the end be? (Hopkins 193). These two novels conclude on a note of uncertainty and open-endedness, yet promote possibility and hope, important characteristics of utopian fiction. From the world of utopian fiction, I now turn to counter-utopian fiction, which is largely the product of the terrors of the twentieth century (Moylan xi). As Tom Moylan points out, circumstances of the past century have inspired all kinds of counterutopian imaginings: A hundred years of exploitation, repression, state violence, war, genocide, disease, famine, ecocide, depression, debt, and the steady depletion of humanity through the buying and selling of everyday life [have] provided more than enough fertile ground for this fictive underside of the utopian imagination. (Moylan xi) Anti-utopias, heterotopias, and dystopias all provide unique perspectives for putting a different spin on utopian premises. These alternative frameworks address how utopias fail to be all-inclusive in practice and also critique the concept of normalcy. Interestingly enough, the use of the term normal in relation to physical bodies did not become mainstream until a century and a half ago with the advent of statistics and eugenics, and with it came the notion of abnormal bodies (Davis 2). Since elements of eugenicist thought were absorbed into utopian writing at the turn of the century, it is no 18

surprise that ideas of normalcy and utopia have often been linked. Consequently, the counter-utopian texts I am about to discuss, through their critiques of utopia, also implicitly critique normalizing narratives and trends in society.

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Chapter 3: The Anti-Utopian Text: Black No More According to Lyman Sargent, anti-utopia can be defined as a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space that the author intend[s] a contemporaneous reader to view as a criticism of utopianism or of some particular eutopia [i.e. positive utopia] (Moylan 74). Whereas utopias and dystopias undertake the task of imaginatively constructing and endorsing a world, antiutopias attempt to do the opposite: see through and deconstruct a world (Huntington, qtd. in Moylan 128). In other words, anti-utopia is composed of skeptical imaginings that are opposed to the consistencies of utopia-dystopia and is a useful framework for uncovering problems, rais[ing] questions and doubts, and explor[ing]the very articles of faith on which utopiasare built (Huntington, qtd. in Moylan 128-129). Through its critical analysis of society, the anti-utopian text is more a method of probing the conflicts in human desire and expectation than anything else (Huntington, qtd. in Moylan 129). Black No More is an anti-utopian text in the sense that Schuyler intended readers to view the novel as a criticism of a particular utopian vision, specifically that of a 20

completely homogenous, white America, free from what was often referred to, at the turn of the century, as the Negro Problem. Dr. Latrobe, in Iola Leroy, touches on the crux of this Negro Problem when he states, [The Civil War] has left us very serious complications. We cannot amalgamate with the Negroes. We cannot expatriate them. Now, what are we to do with them? (Harper 229). George Schuyler picks up on this peculiarly American dilemma in Black No More, which takes place in the future (19331940) and tackles the hypothetical situation of blacks literally becoming white through a three-day treatment, administered by Dr. Junius Crookman, involving electrical nutrition and glandular control (Schuyler 11). Dr. Crookman believes he has found the solution to the most annoying problem in American life (Schuyler 35). He reasons, If there were no Negroes, there could be no Negro problem. Without a Negro problem, Americans could concentrate their attention on something constructive (Schuyler 35). Max Disher is the first to volunteer himself for a race change at the Black-NoMore (BNM) sanitarium in Harlem. In order to pursue the Georgian beauty of his dreams, who turned him down at the Honky Tonk Club a few weeks before, Max decides that he must get white and to Atlanta (Schuyler 14). The black Max Disher thus becomes the white Matthew Fisher and finally gets to experience life as a white man, which, though it has its many societal perks, turns out to be pretty dull overall. The moments of nostalgia he feels for the black community he has left behind are fleeting, and he soon finds himself in Atlanta, looking for a job. In the meantime, Dr. Crookman and his associates are getting rich quick in the BNM business, but not without adamant opposition from both the white and black communities, in particular businessmen, white

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supremacists, and the National Social Equality League led by Dr. Shakespeare Agamemnon Beard (Schuylers satirical portrayal of W.E.B. DuBois). At first, Matthew is puzzled by the attitude of opponents to Black-No-More. After all, werent Crookmans efforts getting rid of the Negro problem? Then he recalls what someone once said to him about unorganized labor being cheap and alluring to new industries, that so long as the ignorant white masses could be kept thinking of the menace of the Negro to Caucasian race purity and political control, they would give little thought to labor organization (Schuyler 44). Matthew realizes that BNM is more of a threat to white business than to white labor, and it dawns on him that he can use the situation to his advantage to make a great deal of money. He finds just what he is looking for in an advertisement for the Knights of Nordica, a revival of the KKK. Posing as an anthropologist with a background in race science, he is able to convince Imperial Grand Wizard Rev. Givens that he could be quite an asset to the Knights of Nordica. Givens signs Fisher on board and eventually bestows upon him the title of Grand Exalted Giraw, making him second-in-command in the white supremacist organization. Matthew spots an attractive, strangely familiar woman at one of the Knights of Nordica meetings and discovers that not only is she the same woman who had rejected him in Harlem, she is also the daughter of Rev. Givens. This woman, Helen, suspects nothing about Matthews past as a black man, and willingly marries him. In the wake of Negro businesses and pride being hit hard by Dr. Crookmans treatment, the National Social Equality League decides to hold a convention in hopes of banding Negro leaders together to oppose Black-No-More. Dr. Shakespeare A. Beard

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submits a resolution to Attorney General Walter Brybe, who refuses to act against the legitimately run BNM business. Meanwhile, the Knights of Nordica is expanding with an effective antimiscegenation platform, warning its members of the ever-present danger of black babies. Matthew uses his new power and influence to open a lucrative side enterprise, blackmailing and deceiving some of the leading businessmen in Atlanta. The South becomes chaotic without the pariah class: [T]here were no longer any Negroes to jim crow (Schuyler 102). Roads and homes that were once built for the black community had to be repaired and altered to suit white tenants, both real and imitation. In response to the growing fear of black babies, Dr. Crookman opens a series of lying-in hospitals for prospective mothers who suspect they may be having a black child. In these hospitals, the infants are given a twenty-four-hour treatment to make them white. When Matthew finds out that Helen is pregnant, he plans to send her North for confinement, but when she has a miscarriage, Matthew is saved, for the time being, from having to reveal his secret of being a BNM Caucasian. As part of Matthews political proposition, he gets Givens to deliver an address on the radio entitled The Menace of Negro Blood, advocating the closing of BNM sanitariums and the deportation of everyone involved with Black-No-More. In response, President Harold Goosie appoints a commission of citizens to study the whole question thoroughly and to make recommendations (Schuyler 117). The complete report of 1789 pages comes out two months later to be read by only nine people without any conclusive results.

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Mr. Snobbcraft, President of the Anglo-Saxon Association, employs Dr. Buggerie in an attempt to get a genealogical law passed that would disfranchise all people of Negro or unknown ancestry (Schuyler 120). While doing family tree research, Dr. Buggerie discovers that not even Mr. Snobbcraft is purely Anglo-Saxon as he claims to be. The Republicans are able to get their hands on Buggeries summary report before Snobbcraft can hide it, and when word gets out, the Democratic presidential (Givens) and vice-presidential (Snobbcraft) candidates are discredited and attacked. Republican candidates Goosie and Gump are left with the upper hand. At the same time, Helen gives birth to a black baby and deduces, through breaking newspaper headlines about her father, that she too has Negro blood. Assuming that the color of the baby is due to her heritage, she apologizes profusely to Matthew, only to learn that he is the product of Dr. Crookmans BNM treatment. Helen and her parents come to terms with their black heritage, count their lucky stars, and hop on a plane along with Matthew and their new baby for Mexico to escape the growing mob. Snobbcraft and Buggerie, also fearing for their lives, board a plane for Mexico, but run out of gas over Mississippi. They are forced to land in the town of Happy Hill where the fanatical Rev. Alex McPhule is leading a revival. In order to conceal their identities, Buggerie suggests that they paint their faces with shoe polish. Interpreting their arrival as a sign from God and mistaking them for blacks, McPhules congregation lynches Snobbcraft and Buggerie, an ironic end to the lives of the President of the Anglo-Saxon Association and his right-hand man. Dr. Crookman, in his new position as Surgeon-General, publishes a monograph declaring that new Caucasians who have undergone BNM treatment actually have 24

lighter skin than old Caucasians. His statement leads to the re-examination of color in America, with a new preference for darker skin. Skin stains become all the rage as the countrys cycle of racial differentiation and discrimination begins to play itself out anew (Morgan 346-47). The premise of Schuylers anti-utopian satire, according to John M. Reilly, is that color has no reality apart from the socially created one, and to that extent culture is an historical accident that would be modified if color-phobia were to end (107-108). Because Americans are hard-pressed to simply eliminate color-phobia, no doubt due to its privileged status as a deeply ingrained value in the American psyche, Black-No-More ends up causing hell on earth instead of solving Americas race problem (Peplow, CLA 245). As Schuyler would have us see it, America is so obsessed with color, hypocrisy, greed, lust, and stupidity that even the supposedly decent virtues of religion and patriotism will be used against man (Peplow, CLA 257). This is particularly true of the Snobbcraft-Buggerie lynching, which becomes a horrible parody of a religious celebration (Peplow, CLA 255). Through this disturbing scene (and others like it in Black No More), Schuyler challenges the feasibility of utopian thought, specifically with respect to race relations in America.

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Chapter 4: The Heterotopian Text: Trouble on Triton John Fekete describes Delany as sharply critical of utopian endeavors, which he sees as offering illusory consolation (130). In contrast to the false reassurance of utopia, Delanys model, whichhe calls heterotopia, proposes disturbance and dissolution (Fekete 130). Originally coined by Michel Foucault, the term heterotopia has the literal meaning other space. In his essay Des Espace Autres, translated Of Other Spaces, Foucault defines heterotopia as a place unlike ordinary cultural spacesthat is[,] however[,] connected with all the sites of [culture] (Foucault 4).2 One of the defining principles of heterotopia is that it is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible, and thus taking on the form of contradictory sites (Foucault 4). Heterotopias are different from utopias, which are sites with no real place [that] have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of society [and] present society itself in a perfected form (Foucault 3). Fundamentally, utopias are unreal spaces while heterotopias are real spaces that are paradoxical in their existence (Foucault 3). As examples of heterotopias, Foucault cites museums, theaters, gardens, and cemeteries spaces that are linked with [yet also] 26

contradict allother sites (Foucault 2). Foucault elaborates on the distinction between utopias and heterotopias in The Order of Things: Utopias afford consolationHeterotopias are disturbing, probably because they make it impossible to name this and that, because they shatter or tangle common names, because they destroy syntax in advanceThis is why utopias permit fables and discourse: they run with the very grain of language and are part of the fundamental fibula; heterotopiasdesiccate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source; they dissolve our myths and sterilize the lyricism of our sentences. (Foucault, qtd. in Delany 292) Borrowing Foucaults terminology, Jeffrey Allen Tucker points out that the heterotopia of Trouble on Triton contests the very possibility of utopia through its resignation to the inevitabilityof social difference (42; Chan, qtd. in Tucker 44). Utopia, on the other hand, is often associated with the erasure of social difference (Chan, qtd. in Tucker 44). The tendency of utopia to encourage uniformity produces a normalizing thrust, which Delany critiques throughout the course of his novel. Though Trouble on Triton depicts an ideal society, it is not one characterized by unity, totality, or singularity, but instead by the enormous multiplicity of subject positions available to be occupied (Tucker 43). In addition to being distinct from utopia, heterotopia is also distinct from dystopia. Trouble on Triton may at first appear to be dystopian in nature, however, this is not the case, as Michael Mass illustrates:

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The apparent omnipresence of a centralized government, seen in ego booths and money tokens, as well as the combat zone-like unlicensed sector and the random violence of the [Rampant Order of] Dumb Beasts, [who try to put an end to meaningless and/or meaningful communication], seem to promise a dystopia, in which the individual is subsumed by extreme social chaos or orderHowever, the rapid transition from violence to aesthetics from Brons watching a woman being hit by a Dumb Beast to that same womans bringing him as sole spectator to an intense, minute-long microtheater performance precludes dystopia. (Mass, in Slusser 49, italics added) An emphasis on aesthetics, experimentation, and possibilities thus separates Delanys novel from the likes of Parable of the Sower. Trouble on Triton follows the trials and tribulations of the reasonably happy Bron Helstrom, an immigrant from Mars to the heterotopian/utopian society of Triton, a moon of Neptune and the best of all possible [worlds] (Delany 99). The novel takes place during the twenty-second century (beginning in the year 2112), in the midst of a war between the Outer Satellites, including Triton, and the Inner Worlds, including Earth. Though an explicit reason for the war is never given, other than a reference to economic domination, the residents of Triton, where the state [cannot] interfere with the choices of its citizens up to the point of destructive distress, believe the war is being fought over the inviolable right to subjective reality (Vint 3). The war, however, is merely a backdrop for the central premise of the novel Brons futile search for happiness in a society that promises complete freedom of choice and practically guarantees fulfillment. 28

Bron describes Triton well when he says, They make it so easy for you all you have to do is know what you want: no twenty-first century-style philosophical oppression; no twentieth-century-style sexual oppression; no nineteenth-century-style economic oppression (Delany 99). Life on Triton provides ample opportunities for selfexpression, including an unlicensed (u-l) sector of the city in which anything goes sex change and refixation operations to accommodate the existence of forty or fifty basic sexes (falling into nine categories, four homophilic and five heterophilic) as well as hundreds of religions, co-op residences (based on sexual preference), political parties, and affiliations (Delany 99). The problem is that Bron, who lives in a non-specific mens co-op and works in computer metalogics, a job which requires him to constantly question logic itself, cannot take advantage of all Triton has to offer simply because he does not know what he wants. While still a man, Bron expresses a strong dislike for Sam, an intelligent, handsome, powerful black man, who lives in the same co-op as he does, though his job as head of the Political Liason Department between the Outer Satellite Diplomatic Corps and Outer Satellite Intelligence keeps him away most of the time (Delany 26). Despite his dislike for Sam, who actually used to be a blonde, blue-eyed waitress before his sex (and race) change operation, Bron still considers him one of his few friends and accompanies him on a diplomatic trip to Earth (Delany 126). While on Earth, Bron gets mixed up in a political hostage situation, during which he is incarcerated, interrogated, and tortured before Sam is able to bail him out. Brons crisis of identity begins when an attractive woman with the stage-name the Spike, director of a traveling theatrical commune, refuses his advances and 29

proclamation of love (Vint 3). This rejection adds to his frustration over a lifetime of failed sexualizationships (Delany 27). According to Sherryl Vint, [t]he turning point for Bron occurs during an incident in which he constructs himself as a heroic male who has rescued the familiar helpless-woman-of-patriarchal-construction and said woman fails to appreciate his heroism (Vint 3). The woman Vint references is Audri, one of Brons bosses at work, whom he rescues along with her fellow female residents by breaking one of the windows of their co-op, allowing them to escape during a power outage that has caused random gravity fluctuations in the city. However, as it turns out, shortly after Bron performs this heroic act, authorities declare it is now safe for everyone to go home, and Bron is let down once again. He believes the women fail[ed] to respond in a manner he considers appropriate to his heroism (Vint 3). As a result of this incident and his anger at the Spike for rejecting him, he decides to switch both gender and sexual orientation, becoming a woman who desires males (Vint 3). He explains his reasoning to Lawrence, his seventy-two-year-old homosexual friend, arguing that women dont understand normal, heterosexual men, and he must, therefore, become [the kind] of woman [who does understand men] to preserve the species (Vint 3, Delany 232). According to Bron, what gives the species the only value it has are men, and particularly those men who can do what [he] did, i.e. bravely face the war and the torture and terror leading up to it (Delany 232). Clearly, we are not meant to identify with the morally reprehensible, ignorant, and rude character of Bron, but there is something in his inability to understand himself and the world he lives in that draws a certain degree of sympathy from the reader. As a woman, Bron finds herself attracted to Sam and pleads with him to consider a 30

relationship with her: Sam, please. Let me come live with you and your family. I wouldnt be much bother. Youve known me as a friend for almost a year; Ill take the chance on your getting to know me as a lover (Delany 261). As it turns out, Sam is not sexually interested in Bron, and Sams rejection leads Bron to reconsider her reasons for becoming a woman: At one point there had been something she had thought she could do better than other women because she had been a man, known first-hand a mans strengths, a mans needs. So she had become a woman to do it. But the doing, as she had once suspected and now knew, was preeminently a matter of being; and being had turned out to be, more and more, specifically a matter of not doingWhat was she trying to do?It had to do with saving the raceno, something to do with saving or protectingmen? But she was a woman. Then why? (Delany 263) In the end, Bron finds herself more confused than ever, unable to inhabit her body as a complete woman, mainly because she did not grow up as a woman, but also, as her counselor points out, because she consciously and subconsciously tries to live up to male ideals and stereotypes of womanhood (Delany 251). Bron is a woman created by the man she used to be a very sexist, traditional, ignorant man and, thus, she turns out to be a submissive, disempowered, and unhappy woman. It is all-too-fitting that a story about disappointment in a heterotopian/utopian society ends with even more disappointment, allowing Delany to examine the limits of utopia and its effects on individuals.

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Chapter 5: The Dystopian Text: Parable of the Sower Lyman Sargent defines dystopia as a non-existent societythat the author intend[s] a contemporaneous reader to view as considerably worse than the society in which [the] reader live[s] (Moylan 74, italics added). Referencing the work of Raffaella Baccolini, Tom Moylan discusses the following distinction between utopian and dystopian works: [In] the typical utopian narrative, [we see] a visitors guided journey through a utopian society that leads to a comparative response that indicts the visitors own society[while with] dystopia, the text usually begins directly in the bad new world, and yet even without a dislocating move to an elsewhere, the element of textual estrangement remains in effect since the focus is frequently on a character who questions the dystopic society. (148) Parable of the Sower is a dystopian text by virtue of both its form and content. It begins by placing the reader directly in [a] bad new world of uncertainty and fear inside a gated California community plagued with violence, poverty, and sheer madness; a world 32

in which transnational corporations have prevailed, but only by destroying the social and natural ecology that had sustained capitalism through its many stages (Moylan 224). It is also significant that Butler, following a long-standing dystopian tradition, chooses to relay the narrative in the form of Laurens journal entries (Moylan 227). Parable of the Sower begins in the year 2024 and tells the story of Lauren Olamina, a black teenager living in the walled community of Robledo, California. In Robledo, jobs are scarce and security even harder to come by. The Olaminas and their neighbors live as virtual prisoners, constantly in fear of attack by thieves and drug addicts, who have become desperate enough (due to the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor) to steal, burn, and scavenge whatever they can. Though she considers herself lucky compared to others, Lauren is not blind to the fact that she is among those neglected by the nearly defunct government and corporate tsars now running the country. By the age of fifteen, Lauren decides to prepare herself for the worst, putting together an emergency pack with dry food and other necessities in case she must escape in the middle of the night. She also tries, often unsuccessfully, to get the word out about impending danger. Throughout the novel, we accompany Lauren on a spiritual journey, during the course of which she creates a new religion, Earthseed, around the basic principle that God is Change, a drastic departure from the Christianity preached by her Baptist father, Rev. Olamina. As a result of the side effects of Paracetco, the drug that Laurens mother abused while pregnant with her, Lauren was born with hyperempathy, a condition in which she shares the pain and, though it is rare in her world, the pleasure of others. As an empath, Lauren is doubly crippled by the collapse of her community; she experiences not only her 33

own emotional pain during the violent siege on Robledo, but also the physical pain of her friends and neighbors as she is forced to walk over their dying bodies on her way out of the wreckage. She leaves behind her father, who disappeared before the siege, her stepbrother Keith, who was violently murdered in a drug-related incident, and her stepmother, Cory, who, along with Laurens other step-brothers, was allegedly killed on the streets of Robledo during the attack. After leaving her walled community behind, Lauren meets up with her old neighbors, Harry Balter and Zahra Moss, on the street. They decide to travel together on their journey north to find paying jobs and a decent place to live where water is not as expensive and violence not as prevalent. Lauren decides to dress as a man and pretend she is dating Zahra, who is black, instead of letting others think Zahra is with Harry, who is white, so as not to attract unwanted male or racist attention, since mixed race couples are conspicuous targets. Along the way, Lauren opens up to Harry and Zahra by sharing excerpts from her Earthseed notebook, such as the following verse: All that you touch / You change. / All that you Change / Changes you. / The only lasting truth / Is Change. / God / Is Change (Butler 174-175). After much consideration, she even lets them in on her secret of being a sharer (i.e. having hyperempathy). The three of them come across other drifters along the way, a few of whom have been enslaved in some form or other, either through debt slavery as in the case of Emery Solis or prostitution like Jill and Allie Gilchrist. In addition to these travelers, Lauren, Harry, and Zahra invite Emerys daughter, Tori, the Douglas family (Travis, Natividad, and their baby, Dominic), Grayson and Doe Mora, Justin Rohr (a little orphaned boy), and Taylor Franklin Bankole (a middle-aged doctor who later begins a relationship with Lauren) to join them. They encounter many 34

hardships along the way, including an earthquake, gunfights, vicious dogs, and even the death of one of their own, Jill. To her surprise, Lauren also discovers that she is not the only sharer in the group when she learns that Emery, Tori, Grayson, and Doe are all afflicted with hyperempathy. Eventually, in the year 2027, the group settles on a piece of coastal land in Humboldt County, California, owned by Bankole, where his sister had once lived with her family. It is here that they decide to begin their new life together as Acorn, a utopian collective united by the principles of Earthseed, devoted to surviving by working the land, looking out for one another, and actively molding a future for themselves. Lauren believes that [n]ow is [the] time for building foundations Earthseed communities focused on the Destiny, which is to take root among the stars (Butler 199). After all, she proclaims, my heaven really exists, and you dont have to die to reach it (Butler 199). Butlers emphasis on a forward-moving group dynamic is different from classical dystopia, in which memory remains too often trapped in an individual and regressive nostalgia (Baccolini, in PMLA 521). Critical dystopias like Parable of the Sower show that a culture of memory one that moves from the individual to the collective is part of a social project of hope (Baccolini, in PMLA 521). As Butlers novel demonstrates, dystopian narratives serve a greater purpose than simply asserting a cynical view of society: Utopia is maintained in dystopia, traditionally a bleak, depressing genre with no space for hope in the story, only outside the story: only by considering dystopia as a warning can we as readers hope to escape such a 35

dark futureButlersParable of the Sower, by resisting closure allow[s] readers and protagonists to hope: the ambiguous, open endin[g] maintain[s] the utopian impulse within the work. In fact, by rejecting the traditional subjugation of the individual at the end of the novel, the critical dystopia opens a space of contestation and opposition for those groups women and other ex-centric subjects whose subject position is not contemplated by hegemonic discourse for whom subject status has yet to be attained. (Baccolini, in PMLA 520) In addition to the open ending strategy Butler uses to permit a space for subjects outside the hegemonic discourse, she creates an intertextual web that borrows from a variety of sources, including slave narratives, feminist fiction, survivalist adventure, realist fiction, and New Age theology (Moylan 223). According to Baccolini, other contemporary female dystopian novelists have also resist[ed] genre purity in favor of a hybrid text that renovates dystopian science fiction by making it politically and formally oppositional (PMLA 520). Much like the fusion of genres within the narrative structure of modern-day counter-utopian novels, the characters portrayed in these texts are themselves often the products of experiments in hybridization, a concept I will discuss further in the following section.

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Chapter 6: Escaping the Limits of the Body The protagonists of Black No More, Trouble on Triton, and Parable of the Sower all defy physical limitations normally imposed on human beings. They force the reader to abandon preconceived notions of boundaries and possibilities. In this sense, each one of them is a type of cyborg. Though not literally a hybrid of machine and organism, each is the product of technological advances or their side effects (as we see with Lauren and the Paracetco) impacting the body directly and altering it irrevocably (Haraway, in Norton 2269). It is certainly not a stretch to associate these characters with cyborgs, particularly considering that the cyborg as we know it today began with the category disputations over the black body in America, between what constituted human and animal (Chaney 267). The need to escape the marked body has always been a theme in African American writing, both science fiction and otherwise. This can be seen in the numerous passing novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With the advent of skin lightening and hair straightening products, there was greater pressure and more opportunities for African Americans to escape the limitations of their bodies and assimilate into the white world. The concept of the cyborg, however, unlike the use of 37

products or deception, allows for a more permanent means of escaping these physical limitations. Though the cyborg is more advanced in its potential, both on a societal and individual level, it still harbors a degree of uncertainty and danger. Donna Haraway discusses this and other attributes of the cyborg in her Manifesto for Cyborgs: The cyborg is resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy, and perversity. It is oppositional, utopian, and completely without innocenceUnlike the hopes of Frankensteins monster, the cyborg does not expect its father to save it through a restoration of the garden; i.e., through the fabrication of a heterosexual mate, through its completion in a finished whole, a city and cosmosSo [the] cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might explore as one part of needed political work. (Haraway, in Norton 2270-2274) By the mere fact that they are cyborgs, the embodiment of transgressed boundaries and potent fusions, the manner in which Max, Bron, and Lauren choose to use their bodies is inherently a political statement. The degree to which they are satisfied or dissatisfied inhabiting their bodies and the extent to which they utilize the possibilities of their bodies to impact the lives of others around them reveals a great deal about the successes and failures of the utopian societies in which they live. As these characters illustrate, it is not necessarily easy or desirable to escape the limits of ones body. Years before Delany and Butler began writing about the malleable bodies of Bron and Lauren, Schuyler gave us the race-shifting body of Max Disher, who is reborn as Matthew Fisher after his skin-lightening (and feature-altering) operation 38

(Vint 8). The narrator of Black No More gives the following description of Maxs reaction to his physical transformation: He felt so thankful that he had survived the ordeal of that horrible machine so akin to the electric chair [that] when [he] reached the elevator andsaw himself in the mirror, he was startled, overjoyed. White at last! Gone was the smooth brown complexion. Gone were the slightly full lips and Ethiopian nose. Gone was the nappy hair that he had straightened so meticulously ever since the kink-no-more lotions first wrenched Aframericans from the tyranny and torture of the combno more discrimination; no more obstacles in his path. He was free! The world was his oyster and he had the open sesame of a pork-colored skin! (Schuyler 18-19) Behind Maxs excessive enthusiasm over escaping the limits of his body lurks Schuylers satirical critique of assimilationism, though some critics have read this passage in a completely contradictory manner. Michael Peplow discusses this particular misinterpretation of Maxs race change: It has been suggested that because Max rushes to become white, Schuyler must have been an assimilationist. But this is to miss the point of the book. Schuylers satire attacks assimilationism. Actually Max is an archetypal black trickster who dons a white mask to put on Ole Massa (Peplow, Schuyler 67). Maxs body is used as a tool to convey a significant political point the undeniable and already existent interconnectedness between black and white Americans. Even before 39

Black-No-More, blacks had been passing as white, illustrating the permeability of culturally constructed racial boundaries, but with the advent of the procedure, even those who were unable to pass before are able to do so without any difficulty. By taking the premise of an America without blacks to its shocking andabsurd conclusion, Schuyler makes what is already present in American society hypervisible (Morgan 348). He unmasks the perceived threat of miscegenation as a ludicrous anxiety over something which is already, fait accompli, a reality of American identity (Morgan 347). Octavia Butlers heroine, Lauren Olamina, through her explor[ation of] human potentiality in a world of [seemingly] definite limits also provides the reader with a political statement about the interconnectedness of humankind (Phillips 303). For example, Laurens hyperempathy syndrome can be seen as a symbolic representation of the suspen[sion] of barriers [between individuals] and the creation of unity across them (Stillman 28). Tom Moylan discusses the impact of Laurens condition on her own life and those around her: Likeother dystopian protagonists, Lauren is a relative anomaly in [a] collapsing society, a young black woman and a psychobiological misfit who turns her embodied difference into a force for learning about the world and eventually for organizing others to live in that world on radically different termsshe adapts what could be a genetic disability into a personal gift that endows her with the extra transformative strength that eventually informs her work as a visionary and social reformer. (Moylan 228)

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Despite the fact that Lauren uses her condition to do great things, it definitely has its down side, which she describes early on in the novel: I cant do a thing about my hyperempathyI feel what I see others feeling or what I believe they feelI get a lot of grief that doesnt belong to me, and that isnt real. But it hurts (Butler 10-11). Lauren feels the pain of other people and animals dying, as we see when she goes out for a selfdefense-oriented target practice with her father and the neighborhood children: With my right hand, I drew the Smith & Wesson, aimed, and shot the beautiful dog through its head. I felt the impact of the bullet as a hard, solid blow something beyond pain. Then I felt it die (Butler 39). She has, on occasion, even been tricked by her brother, Keith, into bleeding: Once heused red ink as fake blood to make me bleed. I was eleven then, and I still bled through the skin when I saw someone else bleeding (Butler 10). Though she lost the sympathetic bleeding aspect of her hyperempathy when she turned twelve, prior to the beginning of the novel, her condition continues to be a struggle for her in her everyday life. It limits what she can and cannot (afford to) see. More importantly, it makes her a vulnerable target and a potential hindrance to those with whom she travels. Lauren describes the dilemma she faces over whether or not to tell Harry and Zahra about her hyperempathy as they journey northward: They deserve to know that Im a sharer. For their own safety, they should know. But Ive never told anyone. Sharing is a weakness, a shameful secret. A person who knows what I am can hurt me, betray me, disable me with little effort (Butler 159). Though she is initially taught to believe that sharing is a weakness, Lauren alters her perspective when she considers all that a hyperempathetic community could offer humanity. Jerry Phillips elaborates on the value of this way of thinking: 41

Unsurprisingly, the doctors of the corporate order view hyperempathy as a psycho-physical maladyBut Lauren would have us understand it as a utopian political value. She poses the question: If everyone could feel everyone elses pain who would torture?Indeed, in a hyperempathetic world, the other would cease to exist as the ontological antithesis of the self, but would instead become a real aspect of oneselfEarthseed is the practical ethics of this heightened consciousness of what it means to experience being as, irreducibly, being-with-others. (Phillips 306) Empathy and morality are important themes throughout Parable of the Sower. Lauren emphasizes the importance of learning through experience and interaction with others when she writes, in one of her Earthseed verses: Your teachers / Are all around you. / All that you perceive, / All that you experience, / All that is given to you / or taken from you, / All that you love or hate, / need or fear / Will teach you / If you will learn (Butler 251). She also warns prospective Earthseed followers of the dangers inherent in ignoring our human need for interdependence and tolerance: Embrace diversity. / Unite / Or be divided, / robbed, / ruled, / killed / By those who see you as prey. / Embrace diversity / Or be destroyed (Butler 176). Butlers message is both political and progressive, as Peter Stillman observes: In a way, Butler tries to place the reader, via Earthseed, into a world of post-identity politics, or at least into understandings that are post-identity because we human beings are not only our identities, we are always forming ourselves, developing our potentials, changing ourselves, as we act. (Stillman 28-29) 42

In Trouble on Triton, we find Bron already in the midst of such a post-identity (and even post-gender) world. Living in a society in which gender as well as race and sexuality can be changed as routinely and with as little fuss as we might change a hairstyle, Bron truly is a misfit in utopia (Tucker 43, Fox, Politics 50). The routine nature of these otherwise life-changing alterations can be disorienting for someone like Bron, who has not always been exposed to their accessibility. In fact, according to Robert Elliot Fox, [o]ne of Tritons persistent themesis the torment that confusion may generate amid a plenitude of possibilities (Politics 49). This torment overwhelms Bron as he finds himself unable to allow his desire to function as cognition, unlike his fellow Tritonians, Lawrence, the Spike, and Sam, who stand as models of creativity and flexibility in the novel (Rogan, PMLA 448; Mass, in Slusser 61). As Delany illustrates, the root of Brons problem lies in his need to constantly engage in the act of projection, justifying his own selfish and hateful behaviors by manufactur[ing] perfectly fanciful motivations for what everyone else is doing motivations which, if they were the case, would make his actions acceptable (Rogan 449). In addition, as an immigrant to Triton, Bron cannot seem to reconcile his experience of sexual non-identitarianism with the epistemological framework he inherited from Mars, having lived most of his life in a society in which sexual identity was hierarchically structured (Rogan 449). Brons presumption that men and women are somehow essentially different has no adequate context [on Triton, and therefore] Bron is rightly regarded as a sexist (Rogan 449). Through his speculative and science fiction contributions of the 1970s, Delany was ahead of his time, conveying the need for what Donald Morton discusses in his 1995 43

article Birth of the Cyberqueer as a new space for the subject of [unregulated] desire, a space in which sexuality becomes primary (370). Delany perceptively and wishfully foresees a society in which the majority of people believe in the possibilities offered by an amalgamation of queer theory and technology: [T]he sex-change operations available on Triton (which are not limited to simple sex reversals a male parent, for instance, might elect to lactate in order to breastfeed his child) create a social environment where people may pursue their sexual desires without fear of reprisal from the state or their neighbors and where ones sex-gender performance does not signify in a hierarchical structure of identities. (Rogan 448) Because Bron lives in a society in which identities, sex-gender and otherwise, are not hierarchically ordered, he cannot rely on any sort of default superiority or sexual pairing. Instead, he must take an active role in making himself appear unique and sexually appealing. In a paradoxical attempt to stand out (as a woman with a mans mind) by fitting in (embracing the technology available to live a happy life), Bron decides to go ahead with a sex-change procedure. The narrator describes Brons initial reaction to the operation: The drugs they gave her made her feel like hell. Walk back home, theyd suggested, however uncomfortable it feels, in order to freeze in to her new bodyHer legs felt stiff. They had cheerfully assured her that as soon as the anesthetic wore off, she would be as sore as if she had had a moderately difficult natural childbirthShe had wanted further cosmetic surgery to remove some of the muscle fiber in her arms; and could they 44

make her wrists thinner? Yes, they couldbut wait, they had told her. See how you feel in a week or so. The body had undergone enough trauma for onesix-hour-and-seventeen-minutesession. (Delany 229230) Unlike Max Disher, who is excessively pleased with his new appearance after his operation, Bron is not satisfied and even contemplates more correctional surgery. Bron believes he should now be a completely different person, as if his troubles will be magically resolved, when in reality he remains the same sexist, confused Bron, only now with a different faade. Essentially, Bron has become a man who uses the material of a female body to insist upon, to embody, a definition of femininity that suits patriarchy (Vint 4). Mass insists that Brons female body is [a] form without content, a type and emblem she expects others to interpret on her terms (63). To everyone around Bron, the new body signifies nothing in itself and her renewed offers to the Spike and Sam are, not surprisingly, rejected (Mass 63). Though Bron attempts to become the object of his own desire, the utopian potential of sexual multideterminacy is lost on [him] because he continues to hate women and thus hates the woman he has become (Rogan 456). Unable to utilize this potential, Brons body, like his desire, atrophies and becomes an empty signifier, devoid of any meaning deeper than sexual and personal frustration.

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Chapter 7: The Limits of Utopia Living in a society in which race change procedures are readily available, Black No Mores Max Disher takes full advantage of his opportunity to become a white man. His efforts to escape the limits of his black body, become rich, and marry the white woman of his dreams are all successful. However, the message that his act of stepping over the color line conveys is a disturbing one. Specifically, what Schuyler illustrates in his novel are the following points: (1) the concept of race is ultimately self-serving; (2) the freedom provided by a chromatic utopia is deceiving; (3) American society relies on racial and economic gaps; and (4) Americans are always quick to reinvent a scapegoat for their problems all of which I will elaborate upon below. Perhaps the best example of race as a self-serving construct in Black No More is Maxs decision to join the Knights of Nordica. Matthew, heretofore known as Max, joins the white supremacist organization to supposedly avenge the injustices he endured during his years as a black man, but as we read on we find that his mission is not as honorable or heroic as we might think. The narrator gives us the following, telling glimpse into Matthews reasoning: 46

Unlike Givens, he had no belief in the racial integrity nonsense nor any confidence in the white masses whom he thought were destined to flock to the Knights of Nordica. On the contrary he despised and hated them. He had the average Negros justifiable fear of the poor whites and only planned to use them as a stepladder to the real money. (Schuyler 49, italics added) Clearly, Matthew is simply using his new white faade to dupe whomever he can and rake in the big bucks. Relying on the guiding principle that racial and economic gaps are fundamental to American society, Matthew realizes that he can scare the white population into believing that, through the work of Black-No-More, these gaps are inevitably diminishing. In fact, he is able to suppress a strike at Paradise Mills by diverting the employees attention from their working conditions to race: The working people were far more interested in what they considered, or were told was, the larger issue of race. It did not matter thatthey were always sickly and that their death rate was high. What mattered such little things when the very foundation of civilization, white supremacy, was threatened? (Schuyler 100, italics added). Granted, Schuyler exaggerates for the purpose of satire, but he deserves credit for addressing an important and socially relevant topic (of his era) in this particular passage the use of racial solidarity as a method of preventing the unionization of poor white laborers. This can be seen as an American industrialist version of the divide and conquer strategy used by the British Empire to effectively colonize its subjects by pitting otherwise similar people (separated only by religion in the case of India and the color line in the case of America) against each other. 47

The freedom promised by chromatic utopia is deceiving in that Black-No-More contributes more to suspicion and greater scrutiny than any sort of liberation from color consciousness. By the end of the novel, the color situation is reversed as the nations palest citizens are targeted as objects of ridicule, and it is even suggested that the whitest children be segregated from others in school (Schuyler 178). It is through this bizarre reversal that Schuyler conveys the notion that America is, in fact, dependent on racial gaps. He writes: What was the world coming to, if the blacks were whiter than the whites?If it were true that extreme whiteness was evidence of the possession of Negro blood, of having once been a member of the pariah class, then surely it were well not to be so white! (Schuyler 177). Without any dark-complexioned individuals, it becomes necessary for Americans to create a new pariah class in this case, excessively light-complexioned individuals faulty logic at best since it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between those who were originally pale to begin with and those who appear as such due to side effects of the Black-No-More procedure. By extension, we are meant to infer that a similar sort of faulty logic lies behind racial prejudice, as it exists in actuality. Lastly, what we learn from Schuylers novel is that Americans are quick to find scapegoats for all kinds of dilemmas and situations. Why take the blame when you can play the blame game? Matthew knows this all too well and appeals to a greater audience by diverting the blame for existing social conditions to anyone and anything he can think of, no matter how ridiculous: [In his] editorials [he] painted terrifying pictures of the menace confronting white supremacy and the utter necessity of crushing it. Very 48

cleverly he linked up the Pope, the Yellow Peril, the Alien Invasion and Foreign Entanglements with Black-No-More as devices of the Devil. He wrote with such blunt sincerity that sometimes he almost persuaded himself that it was all true. (Schuyler 79) As a satirist, Schuyler knew that attempting to make America act sensibly was futile, though he maintained hope that he would be proved wrong (Peplow, Schuyler 81). He makes it clear that without getting at the ideological (instead of superficial) roots of disparity (racial and otherwise), America cannot provide the fodder for viable utopian imaginings. So long as irrationality is stronger than reason and greed, stupidity, bigotry, [and] cruelty reign, there is little hope for progress (Faulkner 279, 275). Though Bron is given every opportunity to escape the limits of his physical body, he is still trapped by the limits of his heterotopian/utopian society in Trouble on Triton. For Bron and those like him, the problem seems to be not simply one of achieving freedom, but of knowing what do with it, a familiar theme in the works of Samuel Delany (Fox, Conscientious 97). Triton represents a reality with multiple coordinates and variables, where it appears that anyone can have pleasure, community, and respect: all you have to do is know the kind, and how much of it, and to what extent you want it. Thats all (Fekete 137, Delany 104). This deceiving mantra only leads to greater frustration for Bron because he can neither imagine nor verbalize what it is he truly wants, or more accurately, what he seems to want no longer exists; his ideas on how things should be are based on obsolete, often patriarchal premises. Even when he undergoes the sex-change operation, Bron realizes he does not feel like a complete woman. This is due to the fact that Bron has not undergone the socialization process 49

required to make him a real woman, partly because he has not occupied a female body throughout his life, but also because the kind of ideology that used to produce the inferior-to-man woman Bron desires is no longer a part of social experience in Delanys heterotopia (Vint 4). This brings up an important point about the need for a unifying ideological framework and effective socialization process for a utopian society to succeed on an individual level, a feat which some would argue is impossible. As Charles Nilon points out, Through Brons portrayal, Delany shows that although the people of Triton live in a world that should provide a utopian experience through its elaborate technology, it fails to do this (68). In the end, what this reveals is that in the twenty-second century, much like the twentieth century, technology alone cannot solve all problems. Though many of Tritons citizens seemingly lead fulfilling lives, [their] achievements appear [to be] the product more of individual human efficiency than, directly, of technology (Nilon 67). Thus, technology seems to increase the quality of life for some, but is equally unable to provide finer and more human experiences for [others] (Nilon 67). In Delanys description of Triton, we find the same skepticism of technologys liberatory potential that was present in late nineteenth-century African American utopian texts. Unable to willingly engage the possibilities offered to him, Bron stands out as a conservative amid a sea of ultra-liberal citizens. In Delanys heterotopia, there is simply no room for the orthodox (Mass, in Slusser 50). Bron tries to impose his own rigidity on the ever-changing world around him and through his attempt to rubricize and reduce others to mirrors, the utopian drive is itself critiqued (Mass, in Slusser 50). The critique lies in Delanys interpretation of the utopian drive as a normalizing force 50

that often erases social and personal differences. This minimizing of differences is what Bron hopes for when he attempts to impose a degree of order on the people and world around him. However, he is exceedingly unsuccessful in doing so, and, consequently can find neither his place in society nor the answers he seeks: Bron is the individual who can join no group, form no satisfactory sexualizationship or friendship, even in heterotopia. Brons position as the protagonistis a large part of what makes the heterotopia ambiguous, for there is no deterministic answer to his malaise. Bron is neither the rebel nor the alienated man who points out the flaws of a given society. (Mass, in Slusser 52) Similar to the ideas presented in Butlers Parable of the Sower, Delanys Trouble on Triton gives us a window onto post-identity politics. By intentionally locating his protagonists in settings where difference dizzyingly proliferates, Delany is able to problematize the politics of identity (Rogan 448). On Triton, where sexual identities are allowed to proliferate endlessly, the potential for nonhierarchical difference is realized (Rogan 448). Yet, Bron becomes less sympathetic and more disillusioned as he finds himself increasingly incapable of negotiating [this] proliferation of sexual identities without recourse to essentialism (Rogan 448). Bron has more than his share of difficulty in relationships, both sexual and platonic, due to his inability to properly communicate desire and the fact that notions of biological determinism tend to dominate his thoughts. In a conversation with his love interest, the Spike, an exasperated Bron inquires:

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But what happens to those of us who dont know? What happens to those of us who have problems and dont know why we have the problems we do? What happens to the ones of us in whom even the part that wants has lost, through atrophy, all connection with articulate reason. Decide what you like and go get it? Well, what about the ones of us who only know what we dont like? (Delany 104) The sheer abundance of possibilities and choices on Triton leaves Bron and other ordinary types with no direction and, hence, an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. Since Brons desire itself seems to have atrophied, he is left frustrated and isolated. Even after his sex change, the female Bron feels terribly empty and thinks to herself: Here I am, on Triton, and again I am lost in some hopeless tangle of confusion, trouble, and distress (Delany 277). Why is it significant that Bron cannot overcome his confusion? What commentary is Delany making about society and the individuals place within it? John Fekete offers the following explanation: Delany viewsindividuals from the point of view of larger systems of which they are parts and which they cannot controlIndeed he questions the very existence of the coherent individual agentThe object of his attention is the failed, lacerated, or splintered multiplex human being. (136, italics added) Since the manner in which Tritons inhabitants choose to alter or enhance their physical bodies says a great deal about how they view themselves in relation to others, it is no surprise that, in Delanys novel, explicit attention is drawn to a continual exchange of meaning between the experience of the physical body and the experience of the social 52

body (Fekete 136). The down side to this continual interaction between the physical body and the social body is that all meaning and potential meaning is instantly processed and classified (Fekete 136). As soon as a new concept, body type, sexual orientation, or organization emerges on Triton, it is placed into its very own societal category. In this sense, Brons description of Philips commune in the outer, posh region of the city can be read as a metaphor for everyday life on Triton as experienced by all of its inhabitants: It was all perfect, beautiful, without a crack or a seam. Any blow you struck was absorbed and became one with the structure (Delany 103, italics added). It is no coincidence that Butler endows her Parable of the Sower protagonist, Lauren, with the uncanny ability to feel the pain of others. By doing so, she illustrates the limits of a corporate utopia with its callous and exclusive policies and the need for an alternate utopia, sensitive to the needs of many (particularly working and middle class citizens) instead of the desires of a few (specifically upper class citizens). This new utopian ideal that Lauren envisions in the midst of her dystopian reality is one that gives agency to those who have been systematically deprived of it. This agency comes in the form of shaping God, which essentially correlates to embracing change and recognizing the ability to shape ones own destiny. For Earthseed followers, this individual destiny is inevitably linked with the Destiny, i.e. pursuing biotechnology to colonize space, allow[ing] human beings to.choose to shape and evolve in differing circumstances, increasing the chances for species-survival (Stillman 29). In a conversation she has with Bankole about her beliefs, Lauren discusses the principles of Earthseed:

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[B]: But tell me, what do people have to do to be good members of an Earthseed community? [L]: The essentialsare to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny. [B]: And why should people bother about the Destiny, far-fetched as it is? Whats in it for them? [L]: A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children. A real heaven, not mythology or philosophy. A heaven that will be theirs to shape. (Butler 234) Lauren is aware that much like her dream of a common goal-oriented, conscientious Earthseed community, the dystopian world in which she lives was also founded on a dream, albeit a morally questionable, profit-oriented dream. Butler astutely links dreams and nightmares, showing how future dystopias result from current utopian dreams (and political power) of certain segments of American society (Stillman 15). How can one mans utopia be another mans (womans) dystopia? Peter Stillman explains: The dystopian United States of 2024 is a utopia for those who advocate a small government, low taxes, an unregulated market, unimpeded corporations, unchecked wealth and power, and the devaluing and denigration of political life and public projects. For Butler, putting this vision into political practice has produced a dystopia for almost everyone. The new American dystopia stems from extremes of economic wealth and 54

consequent inequalities of political power, so that the private power of the rich and of corporations dominates. (17) The dystopia of eviscerated and impotent government that Butler portrays reflects the realization and intensification of the dreams of the Republican right [during] the Reagan years, dreams of less governmental regulation and other interference in the marketand a general reliance on the market to reward and penalize (Stillman 15-16). The realization of these right-wing dreams results in the society depicted in Parable of the Sower, in which multi-national corporations act freely and repressively without fetterswhere extreme income inequalities exist and everything, from cities to basic necessities, is being privatized (Stillman 15). In a conversation she has with her best friend, Joanne, Lauren talks about the future of the nation in terms of cities being controlled by large corporations: [J]: You think therell be more privatized cities? [L]: Bound to be if Olivar succeeds. This country is going to be parceled out as a source of cheap labor and cheap land. When people like those in Olivar beg to sell themselves, our surviving cities are bound to wind up the economic colonies of whoever can afford to buy them. [J]: Oh, God, there you go again. Youve always got a disaster up your sleeve. [L]: I see whats out there. You see it too. You just deny it. (Butler 114) Unlike her friends and family, Lauren refuses to live a lie when everything around her is collapsing before her eyes. This inability to deny facts stems from years of dealing with hyperempathy. Lauren cannot deny the physical pain she endures when she sees others 55

suffering. After all, it has the power to debilitate her. In an emotional conversation with her father, Lauren expresses her true feelings about the state of affairs: Do you think our world is coming to an end? Dad asked, and with no warning at all, I almost started crying. I had [done] all I could do to hold it back. What I thought was, No, I think your world is coming to an end, and maybe you with it. That was terrible. I hadnt thought about it in such a personal way before. I turned and looked out a window until I felt calmer. When I faced him again, I said, Yes. Dont you? (Butler 55) The corporate utopia of Parable of the Sower provides opportunities and protection only for those who can afford them and a sort of false protection for those who become deluded debt slaves to the system. Being candid about the situation with her family and friends allows Lauren to focus on more productive efforts rather than remaining under the illusion that things might get better. In this way, Laurens ability to escape the limits of her body also helps her escape detrimental thought processes that plague so many around her. Unlike Delanys Bron, who suffers precisely because he does not have[the] kind of ruthless but realistic insight required for him to lead a fulfilling life, Lauren has the social knowledge, coupled with self-knowledge[, that] makes [her] more aware of the limits of freedom and also frees her from naive and possibly dangerous delusions (Fox, Conscientious 107). Laurens hyperempathy gives her a unique identity and perspective that she would not otherwise have were she confined to the realm of the normal. What others may see as a disadvantage or disability, ironically, enables Lauren to see things for how they truly are and to act on her instincts to actively alter the course of her future. 56

Chapter 8: Conclusion Whether it is through the inability of technology to improve the quality of ones life (Trouble on Triton), the horrors of living in a world without any governmental regulation or concern (Parable of the Sower), or the pandemonium sparked by an America without different races (Black No More), all three African American science fiction novels discussed above illustrate how promises offered by utopian societies can be deceiving and even dangerous. From the experiences of the three protagonists, we learn that merely being able to escape the limits of the body is not enough to provide a sense of fulfillment. It is the manner in which these characters react to and utilize their cyborg bodies that forms the basis of not only their potential happiness, but also the political statements and utopian critiques that result from their actions. Most important, however, is the space that all three novels open for African Americans, minorities, and societal misfits, not only within the realm of science fiction, but also within the realm of reality, providing possibilities for living more complete lives in both present-day and future America.

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The task of examining race (and gender) identity while opening more inclusive spaces is one that African American writers of all genres have undertaken in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Generally speaking, African American science fiction authors do share similar concerns with their black cohorts in the mainstream literary canon. These concerns include addressing the limitations of the physical body, combating racism and stereotypes, coming to terms with the legacy of slavery, and making progressive political statements. But what separates them is the insistence of black science fiction authors on ensuring a jarring sense of discomfort in the reader that pre-empts any feelings of consolation or complacency; a discomfort that is meant to incite action and change. The writings of George Schuyler, Samuel Delany, and Octavia Butler demand a shift in perspective from the outset, if simply in order to follow the fascinatingly outlandish plotlines. Ironically, the distant settings of science fiction novels (whether literally or figuratively) bring the reader closer to a better understanding of what is happening in his or her own community and era. These novels open the readers mind to alternative thoughts and ways of life in a way no other reality-bound writing can. They instill within us skepticism and hope at the same time, an important balance to strike if we are to usher in a viable future on Earth and perhaps someday, as Lauren Olamina suggests, fulfill a greater destiny among the stars.

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Notes
1

This particular definition of heterotopia can be found at the following link describing different kinds of utopias and counter-utopias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia
2

A copy of this essay by Foucault (translated by Robert Hurley) can be found in the book Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology under the title Different Spaces (p. 175-185). However, the version cited here is from an online translation done by Jay Miskowiec, which I prefer for its lucidity and recommend over the Robert Hurley translation. It can be accessed through the following link: http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html The page numbers cited correspond to the printed version of the online text.

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Foucault, Michel. Des Espace Autres. Jay Miskowiec, trans. 2002. 20 October 2005 <http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html>. Fox, Robert Elliot. Conscientious Sorcerers: The Black Postmodernist Fiction of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed, and Samuel R. Delany. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. -----. The Politics of Desire in Delanys Triton and The Tides of Lust. Black American Literature Forum. 18.2. Summer 1984: 49-56. Freedman, Carl. Critical Theory and Science Fiction. Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 2000. Gillman, Susan. Pauline Hopkins and the Occult: African-American Revisions of Nineteenth-Century Sciences. American Literary History. 8.1. 1996: 57-82. Grayson, Sandra M. Visions of the Third Millennium: Black Science Fiction Novelists Write the Future. Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc., 2003. Haraway, Donna. A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001: 2269-2299. Harper, Frances E.W. Iola Leroy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987. Hopkins, Pauline. Of One Blood. New York: Washington Square Press, 2004. Japtok, Martin. Pauline Hopkinss Of One Blood, Africa, and the Darwinist Trap. African American Review. 36.3. 2002: 403-415. Mass, Michael. All you have to do is know what you want: Individual Expectations in Triton. Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy. George Slusser, Eric S. Rabkin, Robert Scholes, ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1983. 61

Morgan, Stacy. The Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science: Race Science and Essentialism in George Schuylers Black No More. CLA Journal. 42.3. 1999: 331-352. Morton, Donald. Birth of the Cyberqueer. PMLA. 110.3. May 1995: 369-381. Moylan, Tom. Scraps of the Untained Sky. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Nilon, Charles. The Science Fiction of Samuel R. Delany and the Limits of Technology. Black American Literature Forum. 18.2. Summer 1984: 62-68. Peplow, Michael. George S. Schuyler. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980. -----. George Schuyler, Satirist: Rhetorical Devices in Black No More. CLA Journal. 18.2. December 1974: 242-257. Phillips, Jerry. The Intuition of the Future: Utopia and Catastrophe in Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower. Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 35.2/3. Spring/Summer 2002: 299-311. Putzi, Jennifer. Raising the Stigma: Black Womanhood and the Marked Body in Pauline Hopkinss Contending Forces. College Literature. 31.2. Spring 2004: 1-17. Reid-Pharr, Robert F. Disseminating Heterotopia. African American Review. 28.3. Fall 1994: 347-357. Reilly, John M. The Black Anti-Utopia. Black American Literature Forum. 12.3. August 1978: 107-109. Rhines, Jesse A. Agency, Race and Utopia. Socialism and Democracy Online. 2002. 22 September 2005 <http://www.sdonline.org/34/jesse_rhines.htm>. 62

Saunders, Charles. Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. Sheree R. Thomas, ed. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 2000. Schuyler, George S. Black No More. New York: The Modern Library, 1999. Stillman, Peter G. Dystopian Critiques, Utopian Possibilities, and Human Purposes in Octavia Butlers Parables. Utopian Studies. 14.1. 2003: 15-35. Tucker, Jeffrey Allen. A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2004. Utopia. Wikipedia. 2005. 29 October 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia>. Vint, Sherryl. Both/And: Science Fiction and the Question of Changing Gender. Strange Horizons. 2002. 13 November 2005 <http://www.strangehorizons.com/

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