On October 9, GWSS hosted Dr. Chi-ming Yang (University of Pennsylvania) for a packed and engaging talk, “A SciFi-Horse Girl’s Coming of Age: The Childhood Archives of Octavia E. Butler.”
Drawing on years of archival research, Dr. Yang explored the formative influences that shaped the imagination of celebrated science-fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, including her early fascination with horses, her experiences growing up in segregated Pasadena, and the environmental and racial consciousness that would later define her groundbreaking fiction.
The talk was based on Dr. Yang’s new book, Octavia E. Butler: H is for Horse (2025), which brings to light Butler’s unpublished writings and drawings to trace her empathy with horses and other marginalized creatures as the roots of her visionary world-building.
Dr. Yang is a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, where her research explores the histories of race, empire, and East-West cultural exchange. Her scholarship spans the politics and aesthetics of orientalism, abolition, blackness, Atlantic slavery, and cross-species encounters in literature and art.
The event drew a full audience and sparked a lively discussion, followed by a reception.
Co-sponsored by: GWSS, American Ethnic Studies, English, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities.