Speculative fiction between criticism and catastrophism in the works of Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin

Abstract

This article analyses three speculative fiction novels from the last decades of the 20th century: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, along with Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998) by Octavia E. Butler, from a sociological perspective. Through a theoretical analysis, we argue that these novels offer key ways to word a world and provide insight into broader cultural transformations, particularly shifts in the semantics of time and space in relation to modern imaginaries of the future. These texts illustrate a fundamental shift away from the Neuzeit paradigm (Koselleck, 2004), in which belief in progress structured social and political projects. As this belief eroded throughout the 20th century, the notion of a clearly envisioned future became unstable. However, rather than endorsing a paralyzing, catastrophic vision of the future, these works, often regarded as “critical dystopias” explore emerging semantics of time and space within the context of socio-environmental crises. By engaging with themes of ecological degradation and survival, social ties, inequalities, violence and reciprocity, these novels interrogate the intersection between speculative fiction and contemporary anxieties surrounding planetary futures.