'The Human Contradiction': Identity and/as Essence in Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy

Abstract

In Octavia E. Butler's "Xenogenesis trilogy" (1987-89) aliens seek to interbreed with the survivors of a nuclear war to remove a conflict between humanity's genetic traits: intelligence and hierarchical thinking. Extant criticism shows "Xenogenesis" contributing to debates about race and identity politics. Race does not evaporate upon contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence; rather, race persists not in a sense that makes "Xenogenesis" a neo-slave narrative, but in other participations in the African- /// American literary tradition and assertions of black cultural heritage. Gender also persists upon contact with Butler's aliens. "Xenogenesis" does not theorize gender as an essentialism; rather, it ascribes behaviour to genetics in order to critique hierarchical thinking.