Kendra R. Parker awarded fellowship to further research late author Octavia E. Butler
Kendra R. Parker, Ph.D., associate professor of African American literature in the College of Arts and Humanities at Georgia Southern, will head to The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, this summer as an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow.
The Huntington Committee on Fellowships awarded Parker a short-term grant to conduct research in the Octavia E. Butler archives as she completes her second single-author monograph.
“It was very competitive, so I’m grateful that the Huntington Fellowship Committee thought my application and project were worth funding,” Parker said. “I’ve been writing about Octavia E. Butler since I was a graduate student at Howard University, so it feels nice to have some money attached to a writer I’ve been working with for so long.”
While Parker has been researching this author for years, this opportunity will provide her with increased access to the author’s works.
“I’m excited to get unrestricted access to Butler’s unfinished manuscripts, journals, letters and other ephemera to help paint a fuller picture of who she was,” Parker said. “I have accessed The Octavia Butler Papers from the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division of Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and I have already made initial forays into the Huntington Library’s Butler archives through the Virtual Reading Room, but that access is very limited.”
Though unrestricted access is an integral part of this grant, Parker can’t wait for the geographical experience this fellowship will also provide.
“I’m excited to immerse myself in her world,” Parker said. “Not just her archived work, but also the steps she took. I get to take her bus routes, visit her favorite bookstores and libraries, and I should even be able to see the house she grew up in and her gravesite. My late mentor Gregory J. Hampton, Ph.D., wanted me to access Butler’s archives, so I’m excited about honoring his wishes, and my own, too.”