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Dystopian worlds are filled with inequalities, oppression and authoritarian regimes. They are cautionary tales that warn about potential dangers. And yet, it is also possible to find positive attitudes and insubordinate characters who fight back through the utopian wish, such as the case of Lauren Olamina. This utopianism yearns for better worlds, free of injustices. This paper focuses on Octavia Butler’sParable of the Sower (1993) and the confrontation of two utopianisms, static and kinetic, through religion. Kinetic utopianism, represented by Lauren and Earthseed, advocates for change and adaptability. In contrast, static utopianism, represented by Lauren’s father and the Baptist religion, focuses on traditional values, and shows reticence towards change. This novel does not intend to condemn any belief system, but to explore the impact that these two utopianisms have on a particular society. The article concludes that the kinetic utopianism of Lauren and Earthseed makes possible the change that she wants in the world through adaptability and progress. On the other hand, the refusal of change and adaptation that characterises static utopianism ultimately leads to its owndisappearance.

Este artigo apresenta uma leitura crítica dos romances A Parábola do Semeador (2018) e A Parábola dos Talentos (2019) da autora afro-americana Octavia E. Butler, com foco na análise das diferentes representações e experiências de corpos marginalizados nessas produções distópicas. No contexto dessas narrativas, entendem-se corpos marginalizados como aqueles que mais sofrem pelos efeitos de uma exploração capitalista desenfreada, de uma crise climática sem precedentes e da incapacidade de gerência do governo. Nessa categoria, incluem-se corpos de diferentes raças, gêneros, idades, entre outros. O suporte teórico utilizado compreende principalmente noções de corpo expostas nas obras A Sociologia do Corpo, de David Le Breton (2007), Microfísica do Poder, de Michel Foucault (1998) e Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler: Slaves, Aliens, and Vampires, de Gregory Hampton (2010).

In the ruined landscape of twenty-first-century California, Lauren Olamina, the main character of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, founds a new religion, Earthseed. Earthseed deifies the cosmic pervasiveness of change with a simple statement: “God is Change.” While several scholars have usefully explicated the religious origins and affective qualities of the Earthseed community, I argue that Earthseed goes further, challenging the 1990s utopian imagination to invent new modes of organization that can work within new social and material realities. As a religion, Earthseed aims at changing humanity as a whole species, a goal so large that it requires radically new models of social and political organizing. In the second novel, Olamina changes Earthseed from a local, sustainable community to a decentralized movement that parasitically draws energy from social ruin. In doing so, Earthseed offers a challenge to the utopian thinking of the 1990s: fidelity to utopian goals requires new methods that can allow a utopian movement to thrive even in the absence of the robust public sphere that supported revolutionary social movements of the 1960s.