Revolutionary Masculinities in Octavia Butler''s Earthseed Series

Engaging with Octavia Butler’s iconic texts Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Scott C. Emerson argues that Earthseed, the religion Octavia Butler creates through the literary imagination of protagonist Lauren Olamina, acts as a manifesto for revolutionary masculinities.

Emerson contests that Butler’s textual landscape is the convergence of catastrophes that exhibit the extreme results of western societal oppression and its reluctance to address growing racial, colonial, gender, economic, and ableist conditions. Earthseed emerges from the imagination of Lauren as a rejection of and solution to societal chaos. Using Afrofuturism and performativity as theoretical departure points, the author analyzes Earthseed as a masculinity manifesto via six tenets—anti-establishmentism, collectivity, self-reflexivity, intentional action, flexibility, and anti-hegemonic masculinity.