O tempo espiralar e o corpo em Kindred - Laços de Sangue - de Octavia Butler: formas de (re) construir memórias via Afrofuturismo

Abstract

A forerunner of Afrofuturism, writer Octavia Butler published the novel Kindred: Blood Ties in 1979. The narrative depicts the daily life of Dana, a black woman and american writer, who lives in California in 1976. On her 26th birthday, Dana unwittingly travels back in time to Maryland in 1815, the time of slavery in the United States. The reason for Dana's travels is that she needs to save the life of Rufus, her white ancestor, who is always at risk. That said, our work has the objective of analyzing how spiral time and the body help in the (re)construction of the protagonist's memories of her ancestors, as well as how they are valued within the aesthetics of Afrofuturism. To do this, we draw on the studies of Mark Dery (1994) and Ytasha Womack (2013) to conceptualize and present the premises of Afrofuturism, as well as its presence in different artistic fields. Next, our proposal is to contribute to the discussion about which literary genre Kindred: Blood Ties fits into, based on the contributions of Adam Roberts (2018) and Camile Fernandes Borba (2021). Subsequently, we will analyze spiral time, based on the studies of Leda Maria Martins (2021) in the novel and we will present the different studies on memory, including Maurice Haldbawachs (1990), Aleida Assman (2011), Jacques Le Goff (1988) and Michel Pollak (1992). Finally, we will look at how Dana's body is a place for preserving memories and and the presence of the critical lens of Afropessimism, in the composing of the violent actions that mark the protagonist's body, based on the contributions of professors Frank B. Wilderson III e and Kênia Freitas (2022). Wilderson III (2020) and Kênia Freitas (2022).