Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Time travel is a popular science fiction idea, and it is usually presented as a fun adventure of curiosity and discovery. How does that change when the protagonist of the story has an identity that was historically oppressed and dehumanized, like Black people were under slavery?

Teaching Suggestion: The vast majority of time-travel stories are either a romp or headed toward an ironic twist, but Butler writes a grounded, realistic tale of survival around her sci-fi conceit. Getting students to think about the kinds of stories they see within a genre, particularly a genre that has a dearth of Black voices, will help them see that differences between the Black and white experience extend to the kinds of stories that are told and emphasize The Postmodern Blending of History and Science Fiction.

• I want Black time travelers to be a threat to the status quo by Sherronda J. Brown looks at the difference between a Black time travel narrative and a white one, and it offers up the possibility of Black stories as transgressive acts that get readers to rethink the power of time travel stories.