Alien Adaptations: Fandom and Feminist Inheritance in Luce Irigaray and Octavia E. Butler is shaped by the vital force of fandom.
In this text, I highlight the powerful reading relationships forged with and within two influential bodies of work that explore questions of inheritance and generation through a post-nuclear lens: Luce Irigaray’s philosophy of sexual difference and Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction trilogy Xenogenesis (Lilith’s Brood).
In my reading of Butler, Irigaray and their respective readers, I draw out forms of generative relation that diverge from the familial and the familiar order of things. Taking inspiration from the influential taxonomy of fandom developed by pseudonymous blogger Obsession_Inc, alongside Catherine Grant‘s “Fans of Feminism” and Lynne Huffer’s erotic Irigarayan fanfic, I offer the affective engagement and intimate exchanges of fandom as a model for both affirming and transforming complex feminist inheritances.
Thinking through Butler’s emphasis on the transformative potential of embracing difference in Xenogenesis, I explore how fannish engagements that embrace alienation can arouse new meaning within the terms of the canon. Reading Irigaray as a fannish philosopher who inspires her own forms of fandom, I look for ways of crossing over the threshold of Irigaray’s own thinking and affirm the potential for more transformational adaptations to come.
In this text, I highlight the powerful reading relationships forged with and within two influential bodies of work that explore questions of inheritance and generation through a post-nuclear lens: Luce Irigaray’s philosophy of sexual difference and Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction trilogy Xenogenesis (Lilith’s Brood).
In my reading of Butler, Irigaray and their respective readers, I draw out forms of generative relation that diverge from the familial and the familiar order of things. Taking inspiration from the influential taxonomy of fandom developed by pseudonymous blogger Obsession_Inc, alongside Catherine Grant‘s “Fans of Feminism” and Lynne Huffer’s erotic Irigarayan fanfic, I offer the affective engagement and intimate exchanges of fandom as a model for both affirming and transforming complex feminist inheritances.
Thinking through Butler’s emphasis on the transformative potential of embracing difference in Xenogenesis, I explore how fannish engagements that embrace alienation can arouse new meaning within the terms of the canon. Reading Irigaray as a fannish philosopher who inspires her own forms of fandom, I look for ways of crossing over the threshold of Irigaray’s own thinking and affirm the potential for more transformational adaptations to come.
︎ Find out more about Thresholds of Irigaray ︎
Alien Adaptations: Fandom and Feminist Inheritance in Luce Irigaray and Octavia E. Butler is published in Thresholds of Irigaray: Relation Through Difference, edited by Wesley N. Barker and Jena Jolissaint (SUNY Press, 2026).
This chapter was developed from my PhD research, Practicing the Difference: Reading Luce Irigaray with Feminist Science Fiction with support from the editors and colleagues at the 14th Conference of The Irigaray Circle.
Alien Adaptations: Fandom and Feminist Inheritance in Luce Irigaray and Octavia E. Butler is published in Thresholds of Irigaray: Relation Through Difference, edited by Wesley N. Barker and Jena Jolissaint (SUNY Press, 2026).
This chapter was developed from my PhD research, Practicing the Difference: Reading Luce Irigaray with Feminist Science Fiction with support from the editors and colleagues at the 14th Conference of The Irigaray Circle.