Coordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy (Alternatives) [Hardcover]

Adjunct Professor George E Slusser PhD (Editor), Professor Eric S Rabkin PhD (Editor), Robert Scholes (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1983 | Series: Alternatives

These thirteen original essays were written specifically for the Third J. Lloyd Eaton Conference on Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, held February 21–22, 1981, at the University of California, Riverside.

 

Leslie Fiedler sets the tone of this volume by fixing a basic set of coordinates—that of “elitist” and “popular” standards.

 

Those replying to his charge are: Eric S. Rabkin, Professor of English at the Univer­sity of Michigan and author of The Fantastic in Literature, “The Descent of Fantasy”; Gerald Prince, Professor of French at the University of Pennsylvania, “How New is New?”; Mark Rose, Professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, author of Alien Encounters, “Jules Verne: Journey to the Cen­ter of Science Fiction”; Joseph Lenz, who teaches English Literature at the University of Michigan, “Manifest Destiny: Science Fic­tion Epic and Classical Forms”; Michelle Massé, of the English Department at the George Mason University, “‘All you have to do is know what you want’: Individual Ex­pectations in Triton”; Gary K. Wolfe, who teaches English at Roosevelt University, au­thor of The Known and the Unknown, “Autoplastic and Alloplastic Adaptations in Science Fiction: ‘Waldo’ and ‘Desertion’”; Robert Hunt, an editor with Glencoe Press, “Sci­ence Fiction for the Age of Inflation: Reading Atlas Shrugged in the 1980s”; George R. Guffey, Professor of English at UCLA, “Fahr­enheit 451 and the ‘Cubby-Hole Editors’ of Ballantine Books”; H. Bruce Franklin, Pro­fessor of English and American Literature at Rutgers University at Newark, “America as Science Fiction: 1939”; Sandra M. Gilbert, Professor of English at the University of Cal­ifornia at Davis, and coauthor with Susan Gubar of Madwoman in the Attic, “Rider Hag­gard’s Heart of Darkness”; the aforemen­tioned Susan Gubar, Professor of English at Indiana University, “She in Her/and: Femi­nism as Fantasy”; and George R. Slusser, Cu­rator of the Eaton Collection, “Death and the Mirror: Existential Fantasy.”

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

George E. Slusser is Curator of the Eaton Collection and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside.

 

Eric S. Rabkin is Professor of English at the University of Michigan. He is author of The Fantastic in Literature.

 

Robert Scholes, coeditor of the volume, is Professor of English and Chairman of the Semiotics Program at Brown University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st Edition edition (August 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809311054
• ISBN-13: 978-0809311057
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,512,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Scholes was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929. His mother was one of five Brooklyn girls orphaned by the influenza epidemic, raised by the oldest sister, with the help of the Catholic Church. Her parents were Italian immigrants to the U. S. Robert's father (Ted Scholes) was from Philadelphia, of English and Irish background. The name (pronounced skoles) comes from Yorkshire.

Robert went to public schools in Forest Hills, Queens and then, from the fourth grade through High School in Garden City, on Long Island, New York. He graduated from Yale in 1950 and spent several years on active duty with the U. S. Navy, after attending Officer's Candidate School in Newport, RI. He served in the U. S. S. Helena, a heavy cruiser, which was involved in combat during the Korean War, making two extended cruises to the Pacific and bring newly elected President Eisenhower from Guam to Hawaii in 1952. Serving as a gunnery officer, Scholes lost some hearing during this period. After the Korean war, he spent a year in the Philadelphia Navy Yard,helping with the overhaul of destroyers. During his time on active duty his first wife, Joan, had two children, Christine and Peter.

In 1955 he entered graduate school at Cornell on the G. I. Bill, getting his MA in 1956 and PhD in 1959. His dissertation was a catalogue of the newly acquired papers of James Joyce in the Cornell Library. His first academic job was as an Instructor at the U. of Virginia, where he was promoted to Assistant Professor after two years. At the U. of Virginia William Faulkner came to his class when he taught one of Faulkner's novels.

In 1964 he became an Associate Professor at the U. of Iowa, where he was made a Professor in 1966. In 1970 he moved to Brown, where he has been ever since. In the spring of 1971 his first wife died of cancer. In 1972 he married Jo Ann Putnam and acquired four more children: Cynthia, Rick, Greg, and Mike.

During his career he has been author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books, and has served as President of the Semiotic Society of America and of the Modern Language Association. His books range from literary theory and modernist studies to matters of the class room and the curriculum. He helped to found the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown, and, in 1995 he began the Modernist Journals Project, which provides digital editions of modern periodicals for use by scholars, teachers, and students. In 1999 he retired from full-time teaching and became an unpaid Research Professor of Modern Culture and Media, as well as a Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature.