Reading Wednesday

What I've read: Finished my reread of Dawn for Wiscon \o/! I have various quotes highlighted for things like heteronormativity, consent issues, gender essentialism, slavery analogues, and etc., but I still need to mull over things and synthesize before I have anything particularly good to say. Aside from issues about gender and sexuality, which hopefully will get discussed in depth at the Wiscon panel, I'm really interested in how Butler deals with violence. And I'd like to compare Dawn to other post-apocalyptic books about rebuilding society, since I think many of them fall prey to the "The strongest will survive and this is just and right!" mindset that Butler doesn't necessarily avoid, but does try to complicate. Lilith's relationships with other women aren't explored as much, possibly due to the emphasis on pair bonding and reproduction. Some thoughts on how OSC's Worthing Saga has a section very much like Lilith Awakening various people and having to train them for life on Earth, though possibly I only see similarities because I don't read that much SF and therefore don't know other works with this general theme. Lilith vs. Jason Worthing and how the people they awaken and train react to them is especially informed by the characters' and authors' race and gender, imo.

What I'm reading: Partway through Adulthood Rites! Dawn ended much more abruptly than I had remembered, and there's a big shift between it and Adulthood Rites. So far: more notes on heteronormativity, gender essentialism, and violence, as well as a continuation of Humans as Other. I really want to poke at the idea of the specialness and risk of a Human-born male child.

What I'm reading next: For once, I am fairly certain! If all goes well, I will proceed to Imago.