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More than Pulp(?): Science Fiction and the Problem of Literary Merit
MIT graciously returned to M.A.P., in 2003, copyright to M.A.P.'s 1960 Bachelor's Thesis.
This was for 35 years presumed to be the first academic thesis on SciFi as LitCrit. Somehow news of another had evaded both MAP and your humble editor / literary executor for decades. But no, Ad Astra noted in the new century that it's founder had done one too, for an MA, in '51. (More on that below.)
MAP's is likely still the earliest Bachelors Thesis and MIT thesis, and it centers Literary Merit right in the title, not trying to be subtle on making a case for SciFi as LitCrit.
MAP was a master of snark and sarcasm. One anecdote illustrating that and relevant to The Thesis is as follows.
Isaac Asimov PhD, then still somewhat working his nominal day-job at Boston University Med School (Professor of Bio-Chemistry), attended Mike's presentation of his senior thesis on the literary yet science-fictional works of Theodore Sturgeon to the MIT Science Fiction Society aka MIT-SFS. Dr A was a frequent visitor at the only SciFi club in town. (This was before NESFA.org was formed by MIT-SFS alums who'd been told by the Administration that they could no longer run an undergraduate club since they were no longer undergraduates, and likewise before Dr A moved back to NYC between marriages.)
At one point in MAP's presentation of the question of literary merit in Sturgeon et al., Asimov interrupted: “A literary word has never passed my typewriter”.
Without missing a beat, Mike replied, “As the resident expert, I concur”, thus putting Asimov in his place, something few ever accomplished, let alone agreeably.
(Harlan tried, but was merely disagreeable.)
MAP also has a corollary for Sturgeon's Law. Ted Sturgeon, primary subject of Mike's thesis on SciFi as Lit Crit, famously replied to the criticism "90% of Science Fiction is Crap" that "90% of Everything is Crap." Padlipsky's Corollary to Sturgeon's Law is that "Sturgeon's Law must be applied recursively.*"
(And if you read the prefatory afterthoughts on the Thesis, you'll what happened when MAP asked Ted about the Law and Corollary.)
Writer and bonefide academic James E Gunn (1923-2020) ISFDB did his 1951 M.A. thesis first.
(Had the Internet been available in 1960, an online literature search would have found it, or at least the 1958 reference to it, since it was a "bigger" publication. But MAP and the other Old Network Boys hadn't built it yet, let alone Sir Tim put a web atop it. And in 1960, what were available for literature searches, Readers Guide to Periodicals and specialized sibling pubs, didn't provide coverage of "pulp" magazines. Literary Criticism or Science Fact articles in Fiction magazines were not indexed.)
The 1958 reference is buried in an editor's column of a mid-tier pulp mag, describing the prior appearance in another such:
a critical analysis of science fiction, “was the only one ever published in a professional science fiction magazine,” IF: Worlds of Science Fiction magazine, June 1958, (Vol.8, No.4) p.4, Editor's Report. Archive:IF
Elsewhere, it says serialized in "a pulp magazine", and that's certainly a factual description of the serialized location; very yellowed acid-pulp pages.
And that mostly true - it was only 4 small excerpts of a book-sized tome, not the whole that was serialized, same as Mike's extracts-only publication; but the excerpts of MAP's were in the MIT-SFS FanZine, not a ProZine. (Mike's was published for all the world to read in full, and free!, first, tho :-D.)
For those interested, Gunn's 1953-54 serialization of his 1951 thesis are available on Archive(.)org. His chapters appeared in 4 of the 6 issues ever issued of Dynamic Science Fiction magazine.
NB. I can not unreservedly recommend the 'epub' versions of the above 4 books. The OCR is poor, possibly because of the (acid)pulp discoloration of the paper. I could read them but i'm used to interpolating for bad OCR of Victorian books!
More recently, Ad Astra's retroactive announcement of Gunn's thesis appeared.
Ad Astra Issue # 2 2013, James Gunn and the Foundations of Academic Science Fiction Criticism References, bibliographic references to supplement the hagiography by his writer students, James Gunn: The Man Who Taught Us All Science Fiction, Christopher McKitterick (compiler?) "Personal reflections on the achievements and influences of James Gunn." The bibliography lists the 1953 serialized pieces but omits the 4th installment in 1954; (and some 1970s things that sound more history of genre than critical analysis).
And it's been expanded and emended as a real book, 2018. book goog
Modern Science Fiction: A Critical Analysis: The Seminal 1951 Thesis, with a New Introduction and Commentary; James Gunn, Michael R. Page; McFarland, May 24, 2018
"James Gunn--one of the founding figures of science fiction scholarship and teaching--wrote in 1951 what is likely the first master's thesis on modern science fiction. Portions were in the short-lived pulp magazine Dynamic but it has otherwise remained unavailable. Here in its first full publication, the thesis explores many of the classic Golden Age stories of the 1940s and the critical perspective that informed Gunn's essential genre history Alternate Worlds and his anthology series The Road to Science Fiction. The editor's introduction and commentary show the historical significance of Gunn's work and its relevance to today's science fiction studies."
Alas as the classic anon. limerick states,
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
so your humble editor is unclear what limericks and of-the-day Letters to the Editor might be republishable today.
Thesis © 1960, MIT; © 2003 Michael A. Padlipsky. "All rights reserved" (except as granted to MIT).
Pages and Thesis ©2011, 2021 The Literary Estate of M.A.Padlipsky acting through Literary Executor William D Ricker.