Author: Ian Oxman

With the development of Ricky Rice’s pregnancy in LaValle’s Big Machine, I thought it the perfect moment to reflect on one of my favorite readings from this semester, Butler’s sci-fi short story “Bloodchild”. If you’ll recall, Butler dismisses the notion that her story alludes to slavery in the afterword, which sparked controversy in the class from those who read it as such.

“It amazes me that some people have seen ‘Bloodchild’ as a story of slavery. It isn’t.”

While I read “Bloodchild” as a love/coming-of-age story, and perhaps I’ll write a blogpost outlining why I agree with her assessment, I’m more interested in an author or artist’s right to control the interpretation of their work post-release. Continue reading “Possession, Interpretation, and Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild”

This class will definitely be the most rigorous English  course I have taken to date my college career,  and as I move towards the culmination of my academia, graduation, I feel encouraged to look behind and contemplate my path; what sort of path is it, what’s it shape? I’ve always thought of college as a line, sloping upward, increasing, and I’d say the large part of the student body would agree with this comparison. But if I seriously look back at the past three years of college and had to assign some sort of shape to all studying, testing, studying, writing, studying, and testing I’ve done, it’s anything but linear.

So, in the interest of ever-evolving my perspective and challenging the viewpoints which ground the base of my character, one of my goals for this class is to challenge my ideas on what college is, and to view my academic career much more holistically instead of something separate from other aspects of my life.

Continue reading “Circles on Circles on Circles”