{"product_id":"positive-obsession-9780063211834","title":"Positive Obsession","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePREORDER — Expected release: 11 December 2026.\u003c\/strong\u003e This book is not yet available. Dispatch is subject to supplier availability and publication-date changes.\u003c\/p\u003eA magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.  As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity-our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. Her fiction charts the rise and fall of the American project-the nation's transformation from a provincial backwater to a capitalist juggernaut-made possible by chattel slavery-to a bloated imperialist superpower on the verge of implosion. In this outstanding work, Susana M. Morris places Butler's story firmly within the cultural, social, and historical context that shaped her life: the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women's liberation, queer rights, Reaganomics. Morris reveals how these influences profoundly impacted Butler's personal and intellectual trajectory and shaped the ideas central to her writing. Her cautionary tales warn us about succumbing to fascism, gender-based violence, and climate chaos while offering alternate paradigms to religion, family, and understanding our relationships to ourselves. Butler envisioned futures with Black women at the center, raising our awareness of how those who are often dismissed have the knowledge to shift the landscape of our world. But her characters are no magical martyrs, they are tough, flawed, intelligent, and complicated, a reflection of Butler's stories. Morris explains what drove Butler: She wrote because she felt she must. “Who was I anyway Why should anyone pay attention to what I had to say Did I have anything to say I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God's sake. At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing Well, whatever it was, I couldn't stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all.”\u003ch2\u003eAbout the author\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSusana M. Morris\u003c\/strong\u003e is Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States. She has been an Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University and was most recently the Norman Freeling Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan. She is the author of \u003cem\u003eClose Kin and Distant Relatives\u003c\/em\u003e, co-editor, with Brittney C. Cooper and Robin M. Boylorn, of \u003cem\u003eThe Crunk Feminist Collection\u003c\/em\u003e, and co-author, with Brittney C. Cooper and Chanel Craft Tanner, of the young adult handbook \u003cem\u003eFeminist AF\u003c\/em\u003e. She is the co-founder of The Crunk Feminist Collective and has written for \u003cem\u003eGawker\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLong Reads\u003c\/em\u003e, Cosmopolitan.com and Ebony.com, and has also been featured on NPR and the BBC, and in \u003cem\u003eEssence \u003c\/em\u003eand the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Susana M. Morris","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44300562825277,"sku":"9780063211834","price":25.49,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/7689\/2989\/files\/x1000_733035b2-8480-4fa1-b5df-994badfef331.jpg?v=1793698497","url":"https:\/\/www.palmleaf.com.au\/products\/positive-obsession-9780063211834","provider":"Palmleaf","version":"1.0","type":"link"}