"It is basically a love story. There are many different kinds of love in it: family love, physical love . . . The alien needs the boy for procreation, and she makes it easier on him by showing him affection and earning his in return. After all, she is going to have her children with him." (Butler, 1996)

Taken from an interview with Stephen W. Potts in 1996

"She simply came in, climbed into one of her special couches, and called me over to keep her warm" (Butler, 1).

Parasitic Insects!

A brief video summarizing the botfly, the parasitic insect which inspired the grubs in Octavia Butler's, "Bloodchild"

For example, Canada's Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, building a nation states, 'We start with the use of photo identification, proposed as a security feature for the new card. The first thing to note is that human beings are not particularly acute at recognizing individuals from photograph identification, particularly across cultural lines. Moreover, glasses, hairstyles and (for men) facial hair may change, which may lead to questions even when the holder of the card is genuine" It is interesting to note here that biometric identifiers are suggested by the committee as a means to solve detection problems resulting from human beings Mac of ability to recognize individuals from photographs. I argue that what is suggested here is that digitized body data can be a technology to secure accurate and, presumably, fixed race and gender detection. Moreover in this system it is apparently understood that only men have facial hair

Footnote 88 (Simone Browne, Dark Matters pg. 181

-MS

“This essay surveys key areas in the extant of Wynter’s and underscores how particular thinkers have, either in part or to a large extent, challenged what she describes as the over-representation of Man. The research traces the ways in which black subjects negotiate biocentric racial scripts in relation to their own inventions of blackness and uncovers the ways in which Wynter’s insights on sociogeny help clarify the process through which blackness—as we know it—becomes a reality.”

-MS

Sousveillance: “acts of ‘observing and recording by an entity not in a position of power or authority over the subject of the veil lance,’ often done through the use of handheld or wearable cameras” (Simone Browne, Dark Matters pg. 19)

-MS

“It is a real shame he said, when a woman has to choose between her life or her femininity” (Audre Lorde, Cancer Journals pg 63)

“The happiest person in this country cannot help breathing in smokers’ cigarette fumes, auto exhaust, and airborne chemical dust, nor avoid drinking the water, or eating the food. The idea that happiness can insulate us against the results of our environmental madness is a rumor circulated by our enemies to destroy us. And what Women of color in America over the age of 15 does not live with the knowledge that our daily lives are stitched with violence and with hatred, and to naively ignore that reality can mean destruction?”( Audre Lorde, Cancer Journals pg 68)

Audre Lorde references the Dahomey in Cancer Journals 

-MS

“In the gallery today, everywhere offered ugly images of women offering up distorted bodies for whatever fantasy passes in the name of male art”( Audre Lorde, Cancer Journals pg 3)

Wangechi Mutu, Histology of the Different Classes of Uterine Tumors, edition 14/25, 2006; Collage on found medical illustration paper, portfolio of 12 prints, each 23 x 17 in.; Collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation; Photo by Strode Photographic LLC, courtesy of the artist

-MS

“My mother made a wordless sound of annoyance. ‘I should have stepped on you when you were small enough,’ she muttered.

It was an old joke between them. They had grown up together, sort of, though T’Gatoi had not, in my mother’s life time, been small enough for any Terran to step on. She was nearly three time my mother’s present age, yet would still be young when my mother died of age.”

Bloodchild, Octavia Butler, 1984 (collected 1995)

photo: https://www.janusfilms.com/films/1642

Video including land snails that fire "love darts" into their mate

The Indigenous Reservation + Nature Preserve = Terran Preserve?

While reading Bloodchild, I could not help but think about the ways state-sanctioned isolation and separation might connect to the idea of the preserve. The preserve fosters a sense of liminality and surveillance, similar to that of reservations and racial segregation in America. I found it so interesting to consider the real-life examples of this sort of disassociation and how they may have served as inspiration for Butler's work. Additionally, how the preserve aligns with anti-colonial and anti-imperalist discourse. Although I do not think the mathematical expression I provided as a title captures this sentiment, here is an article I found about the role of the reservation in American history.

A drawn interpretation of T'Gatoi and Gan from Bloodchild found on Twitter. Easily the most interesting, intimate, and horrifying image I have seen this year.

See the tweet here: https://twitter.com/pinpoms/status/844924502521843712

From "Biotechnological tools to enhance sustainable livestock production” by Minal Garg (2022) 

"Back when the Tlic saw us as not much more than convenient, big, warm-blooded animals, they could pen several of us together, male and female, and feed us only eggs. That way they could be sure of getting another generation of us no matter how we tried to hold out" (Butler 1995, 5).

"Bloodchild" reminded me of a book I read over the summer, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I do not want to give too much away, but I see lots of parallels between these stories, as in both there is a higher authority that is preserving these special people, like on the Preserve or at this special boarding school, to be used for a special purpose later in life that really only benefits this higher authority.