4. Speculative Fiction, Religious Texts and Octavia Butler - Charlotte Naylor Davis

This episode is hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Simeon Whiting. Our guest is Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis, who is a scholar of the Bible, of Heavy Metal, of feminism, of social theories and how all these things affect and contribute to our lives. In this episode we discuss a recent chapter that Dr Naylor Davis has written on reading Octavia Butler's view of scripture in "Earthseed" (a religion in her work) and how this intersects with our understanding of the Bible. The reference for this chapter is in the bibliography below. Dr Naylor Davis has a Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/MetalBiblicalScholar, Twitter: @NaylorDavis, and is co-organising a conference on "Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity." The call for papers (closing September 15th 2021) can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZy-UuyFCWYmsZx9svCGD1Qs6NNnMJ4LDekZUjTRmYY/edit.

Bibliography:

Aichele, George, and Tina Pippin. “Introduction: Why the Fantastic?” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60 Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 1–6.

Boer, Roland. Jameson and Jeroboam. Semeia Series. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996.

———. Novel Histories: The Fiction of Biblical Criticism. Playing the Texts 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.

Feldt, Laura. The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha. BibleWorld. Sheffield: Equinox, 2012.

Lust, Johan. “Ezekiel’s Utopian Expectations.” Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez. Edited by Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar. JSJSup 122. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Miscall, Peter D. “Biblical Narrative and Categories of the Fantastic.” Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 39–51.

Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible; Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York and London: Metheun, 1986.

Naylor Davis, Charlotte. “Butler’s Invention of Scripture in Light of Hebrew Wisdom Literature.” In God is Change: Religious Practices and Ideologies in the Works of Octavia Butler. Edited by Aparajita Nanda and Shelby L. Crosby. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021.

Schweitzer, Steven J. Reading Utopia in Chronicles. OTS 442. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2007.

———. “Visions of the Future as Critique of the Present.” Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature. Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 92. Helsinki; Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006.

Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

Tipton, Brian James. “A Backward Glance for a Queer Utopian Future: Genesis, Climate Change, and Hope as a Hermeneutic.” BibInt28 (2020): 466–94.

Uhlenbruch, Frauke. The Nowhere Bible: Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction. SBR 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.

Zipes, Jack. “The Messianic Power of Fantasy in the Bible.” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 7–21.

Thanks for listening!