“More Alike Than We Like to Admit”: Revising Otherness and Reenvisioning Humanity in Octavia Butler’s "Dawn"

Abstract

This paper aims to map the complex web of intertextuality, reappropriation and redrafting of traditional notions of humanness in Octavia Butler’s "Dawn". By exploring how the novel uncovers the binary oppositions entrenched in these definitions, the study will assess their potential subversion and/or resignification in the text. Its emphasis on hybridity, symbolised in the posthuman figure of the cyborg, will thus be evaluated in light of its implications towards a new conception of humanity, and alternative ways to negotiate "otherness". The consequent findings will be simultaneously weighed in connection to Afrofuturism so as to gauge the novel’s affiliation to the genre as much as the innovations it avails. For this purpose, the analysis will draw on a variety of sources, ranging from sociological studies and philosophy to science fiction and feminist theory.