جسور المعرفة
Volume 9, Numéro 4, Pages 264-271
2023-12-24

Intersectionality Through The Lens Of Science Fiction: The Past And The Present In Octavia Butler’s Kindred

Authors : Ournid Soumia . Chaal Houaria .

Abstract

The African-American literary legacy has been rich with themes that tackle the social, political, economic, and psychological aspects of African Americans' lives. Octavia Butler adds to this profound heritage by revisiting a past of servitude through time travel to untangle existential questions in her novel Kindred (1979). Butler merges the real with the imaginary by shedding the social light of intersectionality on the commercial genre of science fiction. This article explores the function of time travel in offering social commentaries about the past and the present. It is a textual analytical study conducted from the perspective of black feminist theory to investigate the causality of agency, or lack thereof, in determining the past and present. Analyzing the intersecting oppressions in two different timelines shows that the present, in some aspects, mirrors a more extremist past.

Keywords

Determinism ; Intersectionality ; Past ; Present ; Science Fiction