The Center for the Study of Science Fiction is an educational institution, associated with the University of Kansas, that emerged out of the science-fiction (SF) programs that James Gunn created there beginning in 1970.
In 1975, its supporters held its first Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction, which as of 2011 has continued as an annual event. In 1979, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science fiction novel of the year was presented for the first time as part of the Campbell Conference, devoted to the teaching and writing of SF.
The Center was formally created in 1982. In 1985, the first Writer's Workshop in Science Fiction was held, likewise as of 2011 an annual event. Other annual events that take place in Lawrence each summer include the Intensive Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction (since 1975), the Novel Writing Workshop (since 2004), the "Repeat Offenders" novel workshop, and a writing retreat. Awards presented each year during the Campbell Conference include the Campbell Award for best SF novel of the year (since 1979) and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short SF of the year (since 1987).
In 1991, Gunn's brother, Richard W. Gunn, a retired physician in Kansas City, created an endowment for the Center, and it was ceremonially renamed the J. Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center in honor of their parents.
The Center presented the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in cooperation with the Kansas City Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, from 1996 to 2004.
James Gunn is Founding Director of the Center, Christopher McKitterick is Director, and Kij Johnson is Associate Director.
Famous quotes containing the words science fiction, center, study, science and/or fiction:
“Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“A fiction about soft or easy deaths ... is part of the mythology of most diseases that are not considered shameful or demeaning.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)