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:
“Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can’t talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.”
—Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)
“My center is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.”
—Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929)
“To study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from the plains.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“My mother ... believed fiction gave one an unrealistic view of the world. Once she caught me reading a novel and chastised me: “Never let me catch you doing that again, remember what happened to Emma Bovary.””
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)