Medicine and Ethics in Black Women's Speculative Fiction

Through the transgressive works of prominent writers like Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor, and Nalo Hopkinson, Medicine and Ethics in Black Women's Speculative Fiction explores the fraught history of medicine as it relates to black women and the inconsistent application of medical ethics in today's world. As Jones argues, black female speculative authors connect representations of personal illness to much larger societal sicknesses, shedding light on the ethical issues on topics like militarized rape, children born of war, female circumcision, organ donation, mental illness, and disability. These authors come to reveal the vital role that religion plays for black women in countering such problematic medical ethics, presenting them with alternative ethical paradigms that challenge the construction of black women and girls as "pathological." In so doing, black feminist speculation enters the larger tradition of community-building and advocacy in black women's fiction writing, scholarship, and activism.

Esther L. Jones is Assistant Professor and E. Franklin Frazier Chair of African American Literature, Theory and Culture in the English Department at Clark University, USA. Her work has appeared in such publications as African American Review, Obsidian, and MELUS.

Introduction: Eating Salt: Black Women's Health and the Politics of Difference in Medicine
1. The Black Girl's Burden: Eugenics, Genomics, and Genocide in Octavia Butler's Fledgling
2. The Unbearable Burden of Culture: Sexual Violence, Women's Power, and Cultural Ethics in Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death
3. Organ Donation, Mythic Medicine, and Madness in Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring
4. "I Mean to Survive": Feminist Disability Theory and Womanist Survival Ethics in Octavia Butler's Parables
Conclusion: Blood, Salt, and Tears: Theorizing Difference in the Black Feminist Speculative Tradition