Reading African-American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower instilled in Ashley Chavez an understanding that “anyone and everyone” can make a change, she said.
As a St. Catherine University student leader participating in the university’s year-long integrated learning experience centered around Butler’s work, Chavez is among a host of students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members engaging in conversations related to the book’s themes of hope and change, transformative leadership, immigration, religion and more.
“So much of Butler’s work, particularly Parable of the Sower, is dealing with these very difficult contemporary issues that we’re facing,” said Dr. Tarshia Stanley, dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Sciences at St. Catherine University and founding president of the Octavia E. Butler Society. “It’s a way into those conversations through the literature.”
Butler’s Parable follows the protagonist Lauren Olamina as she navigates a dystopian future shaped by climate change, resource insufficiency and wealth inequality.
Conversations throughout the campus have been “very powerful” so far, Stanley said, adding that the novel has provided a “common language” to approach issues that the campus and community are dealing with.
The integrated learning series at St. Kate has included book discussions, online learning presentations, and the Bonnie Jean and Joan Kelly Distinguished Scholar Lecture featuring a keynote by singer, composer, musician and producer Toshi Reagon. Reagon will soon return to campus with “Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower: The Concert Version” on April 26.
“We really have invited the community to be a part of this, not just the local community here in St. Paul, but the activist community in Minneapolis,” Stanley said. “Toshi is a good bridge for that because part of the way that she brings the opera to a place is that she comes early and she makes connections in the community. So the opera then becomes this culminating event where community is being created really.”
