Drawing the Oankali: Imagining Race, Gender, and the Posthuman in Octavia Butler's Dawn

Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy imagines a post-apocalyptic Earth where humanity has been “saved” by the Oankali, an alien race with the ability to manipulate genetic material. Butler unflinchingly engages questions of race, gender, sexuality, power, and what it means to be human. Drawing on my courses that feature Butler’s trilogy, particularly Dawn, this chapter articulates the pedagogical opportunities raised by the Oankali.  The essay focuses on a drawing assignment called “Imagining the Oankali” where students are asked to draw, represent, or create their idea of the aliens as a way to make visible how the novels dramatize difference, nonhumanness and posthumanness, and difficult identities and embodiments.