"James E. Gunn - Academic Viewpoint" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

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JAMES GUNN

The Academic Viewpoint

James Gunn, author and professor of English at the University of Kansas, who
began his writing of science fiction in 1948 and has since done some seventy
stories and sixteen books while editing three more, is a master of two
difficult disciplines. One is writing and the other is teaching. For over
twenty years he has successfully accomplished what many a writing teacher and
many a teaching writer has found impossible, the harnessing of these two
highly creative occupations in one working tandem.

With all this, he has found time to serve as regional chairman of the American
College Public Relations Association, and on the Information Committee of the
National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. He has
also won national awards for his work as an editor and a director of public
relations. He has been awarded the Byron Caldwell Smith prize in recognition
of literary achievement and has also been president of the Science Fiction
Writers of America.

He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Science Fiction
Research Association, and was presented with the Pilgrim Award of SFRA in
1976. Also, he has been given a special award by the 1976 World Science
Fiction Convention for his book ALTERNATE WORLDS.

He has written articles, verse, and criticism. He has done radio scripts,
screen plays, and television plays. A number of his stories have been
dramatized in both mediums. One, "The Immortal," was an ABC-TV "Movie
of the Week" in 1969 and became an hour-long series, also titled THE IMMORTAL,
in 1970. Meanwhile, his written work has been reprinted worldwide.

Consequently, if there is one writer in science fiction who is fully qualified
in both areas, that of the writer and that of the academic scholar of science
fiction, it is James Gunn. He is a professional behind the typewriter and
equally a professional in the academic area, and as such, no one is quite as
qualified as he to deal with the subject of the article that follows . . . .

When the dean of basketball coaches, the late Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, was
asked by James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, what he intended to do
with his life, Allen replied, "Coach basketball." Naismith responded, "You
don't coach basketball; you just play it."

For many years a similar opinion existed about science fiction: you don't
teach science fiction; you just read it.

As later events demonstrated, both opinions were incorrect. The first regular