This panel discussion – part of Iowa City’s Parables of the Future: Black Future Fest – explores acclaimed sci-fi author Octavia Butler's Kindred and Parable of the Sower, highlighting their relevance to Afrofuturism, social change, and collective imagination.
Panelists will discuss how Butler’s visionary storytelling speaks to our present moment and inspires new ways of imagining the future.
Panelists include:
Venise T. Berry, PhD, is a professor in Journalism and African American Studies at the University of Iowa. She serves on the faculty each winter in the solstice low-residency creative writing program at Lasell University in Arburndale, MA. Berry’s research explores African Americans, media, and popular culture. Berry’s most recent publication is an anthology with Peter Lang, The Black Superwoman & Mental Health: Power & Pain (2025).
Diana Henry is a retired teacher. She has worked in several states, including the Iowa City School District. Since retirement, she has focused on service projects initiated by her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and her church, Unitarian Universalist Society.
Deborah Elizabeth Whaley, PhD, is an artist, curator, writer, poet, vegan blogger, and professor and department chair in the Department of American Studies at the University of Kansas. Previously, she was a professor of English at the University of Iowa.
This event is co-sponsored by the Iowa City Senior Center and is free and open to the public.