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Donald Palumbo

University of South Carolina, English, Faculty Member

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I have taught science fiction and other literature courses at East Carolina University since 1992. Previously I taught or was an administrator at Shippensburg University (PA), Lorain County Community College (OH), Northern Michigan University, Lamar University (TX), and The University of Michigan. I received my PhD from the University of Michigan in 1976 and my AB from the University of Chicago in 1970. I have published about 80 articles and seven books on science fiction and on existential literature and philosophy. I retired in 1972.
Address: Greenville, North Carolina, United States

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Papers by Donald Palumbo

Faith, identity, and perception--three existential crises in modern fiction and their artistic reconciliation : a comparison of the fiction of Dostoyevsky, Joyce, Kafka, and Faulkner from the perspective of the works of Sartre and Camus

University Microfilms International eBooks, 1976

An Asimov Companion: Characters, Places and Terms in the Robot/Empire/Foundation Metaseries

The Monomyth in American Science Fiction Films: 28 Visions of the Hero's Journey

Lois McMaster Bujold: Essays on a Modern Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Introduction and Table of Contents for Lois McMaster Bujold: Essays on a Modern Master of Science... more

Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars: Biographical, Anthropological, Literary, Scientific and Other Perspectives

An Asimov Companion: Characters, Places, and Terms in the Robot/Empire/Foundation Metaseries Donald E.Palumbo. McFarland, 2016

The Journal of American Culture, 2017

Two Perspectives on the American Family: The Cinema Guild's The Good Mother (2009) and Carnivalesque Films’ October Country (2010)

The Journal of American Culture, 2011

Two recent documentary film releases depict two faces of the American family. The Cinema Guild's ... more Two recent documentary film releases depict two faces of the American family. The Cinema Guild's The Good Mother (2009) looks at five contemporary American nuclear families through the lens of successful motherhood, and Carnivalesque Film's October Country (2010) examines one extended family in New York's Mohawk Valley that has managed to survive through decades of serious difficulties. Both films together constitute a tribute to the resiliency of the American family in the 21st century and to the central role motherhood still occupies in American family life. American Mothers, Inc., was founded in 1935 by J. C. Penney, whose group felt that America needed a role model, an icon of American motherhood, to serve as an inspiration to the depressionailing nation and the fractured American family. This organization has sponsored the annual "Young Mother of the Year" award every year since 1936. The American Mothers' Committee's "Mothers Manifesto" states that to qualify for participation, a woman must have children under the age of eighteen and must "be married to her husband, a man, in a legal ceremony; be an active member of a faith-based organization; and strive to improve her mothering skills." The judges mingle anonymously with the contestants and "involve prayer" in their decision. Interspersing interviews with the contestants and footage from the pageant with domestic images and scenes of motherhood from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, The Good Mother takes a close look at four of the sixteen contestants and one judge as they participate in the 2008 competition at the 3-day 73rd national American Mothers convention in Lincoln, Nebraska. American Mothers, Inc.,

A Dune Companion: Characters, Places and Terms in Frank Herbert’s Original Six Novels

$Research paper thumbnail of Chaos theory, Asimov's Foundations and Robots, and Herbert's Dune: the fractal aesthetic of epic science fiction$

Chaos theory, Asimov's Foundations and Robots, and Herbert's Dune: the fractal aesthetic of epic science fiction

Choice Reviews Online, 2003

Introduction Asimov's Foundation Series Psychohistory and Chaos Theory: Metaseries' Archi... more Introduction Asimov's Foundation Series Psychohistory and Chaos Theory: Metaseries' Architecture and the Foundation Series' Premise and Plot Structure The Back-up Plan, Guardian ship, and Disguise: Interrelated Fractal Motifs on the Same and Descending Levels of Scale The Persistence of Prejudice: Asimov's Crusade Against Bigotry as a Fractal Theme Asimov's Robot Stories and Novels Chaor-Theory Concepts in the Robot Stories and Novels Reiterated Plots and Themes in the Robot Novels Integrating the Metaseries Herbert's Dune Series "Plots Within Plots...Patterns Within Patterns": Chaos-Theory Structures and Concepts in the Dune Series The Monomyth as Fractal Pattern in the Dune Series The Monomyth and Chaos Theory: "Perhaps we should believe in magic" Endnotes Bibliography Index

Erotic universe: sexuality and fantastic literature

This comprehensive volume explores the relationship between sex and the fantastic in science fict... more This comprehensive volume explores the relationship between sex and the fantastic in science fiction and fantasy literature. More than a dozen scholars have contributed essays in which they discuss almost two hundred novels, short stories, tales, plays, poems, myths, and nearly one hundred authors--from Aldiss to Zelazny. The collection is divided into three main sections, the first of which is devoted to the theoretical analysis of the relationship between sexuality and the fantastic. This section contains essays on sexuality and the allure of fantasy, and sexuality and knowledge in science fiction. The second section turns to thematic analyses and includes essays that explore such themes as sexuality and death, forbidden sexuality, sexual attitudes and the search for ethics in contemporary culture, sex and technology, sexual encounters with aliens, sexuality and comedy, and homosexuality in fantasy and science fiction. The third section, devoted to feminist views of sexuality in fantastic literature, includes several studies of the depiction of sexuality in the works of female fantasists, and focuses most closely on Russ, Piercy, LeGuin, and Carter. Examined here is the potential use of science fiction as a vehicle for theorizing about women and for questioning their condition in society. The volume also includes an introductory overview and critical commentary on the literature and a comprehensive, contributor-compiled bibliography of primary works and scholarship on sexuality and related issues in fantastic literature.

Spectrum of the fantastic: selected essays from the Sixth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Preface Poetry Art Fantasy Elements in Mainstream Fiction Science Fiction Fantasy Literature Comp... more

Death and Rebirth, Sexuality, and Fantasy in Homer and Joyce

I TS TREATMENT of sexuality-whether sublimated, overt, or even pornographic-is a distinctive char... more I TS TREATMENT of sexuality-whether sublimated, overt, or even pornographic-is a distinctive characteristic of fantasy literature. Perhaps the primary psychological appeal of fantasy is its tendency to exorcise fear of the unknown by revealing the unknown, if only to the subconscious, to be always a variant of the familiar while treating itsafely containing it-in familiar, consciously "known" and recognized, formats. The greatest universal human unknown is death. While fantasy alleviates our fear of death obliquely by ever suggesting that the unknown in general is merely the familiar transformed-and directly through depictions of life after death, forms of immortality, and both actual and symbolic resurrections-it simultaneously releases us from the thrall of death through its treatment of sexuality. For it is in fantasy most specifically that sex-the precursor and symbol of life, of renewal, of the survival of the species (an immortality of sorts) despite the deaths of individuals-is presented, in the contexts of these other psychic palliatives, as death's antidote. By far the most fantastic segment of Ulysses is the hallucinatory "Circe" or nighttown episode, the longest of the novel's chapters and that in which themes, images, catch phrases, and references from throughout the work swirl like debris in a maelstrom. The episode takes place in Bella Cohen's Purdon Street Brothel, and is thus the episode most concertedly and overtly concerned with sexuality. Yet it is also obsessively suffused with death and rebirth events, symbols, metaphors, and allusions. And it contains numerous technical and situational similarities, as well as allusions, not only to The Odyssey, but also to the "Walpurgis Night" section of Goethe's Faust and to Flaubert's Temptations of Saint Anthony, other fantastic works that contain central death and resurrection motifs. While there is much more that is fantastic in The Odyssey than what is encompassed by Odysseus' adventure on Circe's Island, Joyce concentrates the fantastic elements of Ulysses in the "Circe" episode, although some do occur elsewhere (e.g., "Cyclops"). In doing so, and thus linking the fantastic in Ulysses with sexuality through an episode that primarily consists of a series of death and resurrection fantasies, Joyce not only further elaborates the Odyssean parallels that suffuse 90

E. T. Culture: Anthropology in Outer Spaces

Journal of American Culture, Dec 1, 2006

William Burroughs’ Quartet of Science Fiction Novels as Dystopian Social Satire

Extrapolation

Comics as Literature: Plot Structure, Foreshadowing, and Irony in the Marvel Comics’ Avengers “Cosmic Epic”

Extrapolation

Adam Warlock: Marvel Comics’ Cosmic Christ Figure

Extrapolation

Alex Proyas's I, Robot: Much More Faithful to Asimov Than You Think

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2011

... Daneel also provides Seldon with robot guardian and companion Dors Venabili, in Prelude, and ... more

Tarot Reading as Recombinant Narrative: Literature as Game/Game as Literature

Thta do ment has been rectioduced as r meshed from the person or orgenbatiorf otielnad0R Minor ch... more

The Use of Comics as an Approach to Introducing the Techniques and Terms of Narrative to Novice Readers

The pdblications of the Marvel Comics Group warrant serious consIderation as .a legitimate narrat... more The pdblications of the Marvel Comics Group warrant serious consIderation as .a legitimate narrative enterprise. While it is obvious. that these comic books can be used in the classroom as a source of reading material, it is tot so obvious that these comic books, with great economy, simplicity, and narrative density, can be used to further introduce novice readers to the techniques found in narrative and to the terms employed in the study and discussion of a narrative. The output of the Marvel Conics Group in particular is literate, is both narratively and pbSlosophically sophisticated, and is ethically and morally responsible. Some of the narrative tecbntques found in the stories, such as the Spider-Man episodes, include foreshadowing, a dramatic fiction narrator, flashback, irony, symbolism, metaphor, Biblical and historical allusions, and mythological allusions. 4MKM1 *

Review of Two Documentary Films from The Cinema Guild: Buried in the Back Yard and Other People's Pictures

The Journal of American Culture, 2007

''survivalist mom,'' that ''everyone should be a survivalist. .. as a way of life,'' or, like Ste... more

Faith, identity, and perception--three existential crises in modern fiction and their artistic reconciliation : a comparison of the fiction of Dostoyevsky, Joyce, Kafka, and Faulkner from the perspective of the works of Sartre and Camus

University Microfilms International eBooks, 1976

An Asimov Companion: Characters, Places and Terms in the Robot/Empire/Foundation Metaseries

The Monomyth in American Science Fiction Films: 28 Visions of the Hero's Journey

Lois McMaster Bujold: Essays on a Modern Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Introduction and Table of Contents for Lois McMaster Bujold: Essays on a Modern Master of Science... more

Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars: Biographical, Anthropological, Literary, Scientific and Other Perspectives

An Asimov Companion: Characters, Places, and Terms in the Robot/Empire/Foundation Metaseries Donald E.Palumbo. McFarland, 2016

The Journal of American Culture, 2017

Two Perspectives on the American Family: The Cinema Guild's The Good Mother (2009) and Carnivalesque Films’ October Country (2010)

The Journal of American Culture, 2011

Two recent documentary film releases depict two faces of the American family. The Cinema Guild's ... more Two recent documentary film releases depict two faces of the American family. The Cinema Guild's The Good Mother (2009) looks at five contemporary American nuclear families through the lens of successful motherhood, and Carnivalesque Film's October Country (2010) examines one extended family in New York's Mohawk Valley that has managed to survive through decades of serious difficulties. Both films together constitute a tribute to the resiliency of the American family in the 21st century and to the central role motherhood still occupies in American family life. American Mothers, Inc., was founded in 1935 by J. C. Penney, whose group felt that America needed a role model, an icon of American motherhood, to serve as an inspiration to the depressionailing nation and the fractured American family. This organization has sponsored the annual "Young Mother of the Year" award every year since 1936. The American Mothers' Committee's "Mothers Manifesto" states that to qualify for participation, a woman must have children under the age of eighteen and must "be married to her husband, a man, in a legal ceremony; be an active member of a faith-based organization; and strive to improve her mothering skills." The judges mingle anonymously with the contestants and "involve prayer" in their decision. Interspersing interviews with the contestants and footage from the pageant with domestic images and scenes of motherhood from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, The Good Mother takes a close look at four of the sixteen contestants and one judge as they participate in the 2008 competition at the 3-day 73rd national American Mothers convention in Lincoln, Nebraska. American Mothers, Inc.,

A Dune Companion: Characters, Places and Terms in Frank Herbert’s Original Six Novels

$Research paper thumbnail of Chaos theory, Asimov's Foundations and Robots, and Herbert's Dune: the fractal aesthetic of epic science fiction$

Chaos theory, Asimov's Foundations and Robots, and Herbert's Dune: the fractal aesthetic of epic science fiction

Choice Reviews Online, 2003

Introduction Asimov's Foundation Series Psychohistory and Chaos Theory: Metaseries' Archi... more Introduction Asimov's Foundation Series Psychohistory and Chaos Theory: Metaseries' Architecture and the Foundation Series' Premise and Plot Structure The Back-up Plan, Guardian ship, and Disguise: Interrelated Fractal Motifs on the Same and Descending Levels of Scale The Persistence of Prejudice: Asimov's Crusade Against Bigotry as a Fractal Theme Asimov's Robot Stories and Novels Chaor-Theory Concepts in the Robot Stories and Novels Reiterated Plots and Themes in the Robot Novels Integrating the Metaseries Herbert's Dune Series "Plots Within Plots...Patterns Within Patterns": Chaos-Theory Structures and Concepts in the Dune Series The Monomyth as Fractal Pattern in the Dune Series The Monomyth and Chaos Theory: "Perhaps we should believe in magic" Endnotes Bibliography Index

Erotic universe: sexuality and fantastic literature

This comprehensive volume explores the relationship between sex and the fantastic in science fict... more This comprehensive volume explores the relationship between sex and the fantastic in science fiction and fantasy literature. More than a dozen scholars have contributed essays in which they discuss almost two hundred novels, short stories, tales, plays, poems, myths, and nearly one hundred authors--from Aldiss to Zelazny. The collection is divided into three main sections, the first of which is devoted to the theoretical analysis of the relationship between sexuality and the fantastic. This section contains essays on sexuality and the allure of fantasy, and sexuality and knowledge in science fiction. The second section turns to thematic analyses and includes essays that explore such themes as sexuality and death, forbidden sexuality, sexual attitudes and the search for ethics in contemporary culture, sex and technology, sexual encounters with aliens, sexuality and comedy, and homosexuality in fantasy and science fiction. The third section, devoted to feminist views of sexuality in fantastic literature, includes several studies of the depiction of sexuality in the works of female fantasists, and focuses most closely on Russ, Piercy, LeGuin, and Carter. Examined here is the potential use of science fiction as a vehicle for theorizing about women and for questioning their condition in society. The volume also includes an introductory overview and critical commentary on the literature and a comprehensive, contributor-compiled bibliography of primary works and scholarship on sexuality and related issues in fantastic literature.

Spectrum of the fantastic: selected essays from the Sixth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

Preface Poetry Art Fantasy Elements in Mainstream Fiction Science Fiction Fantasy Literature Comp... more

Death and Rebirth, Sexuality, and Fantasy in Homer and Joyce

I TS TREATMENT of sexuality-whether sublimated, overt, or even pornographic-is a distinctive char... more I TS TREATMENT of sexuality-whether sublimated, overt, or even pornographic-is a distinctive characteristic of fantasy literature. Perhaps the primary psychological appeal of fantasy is its tendency to exorcise fear of the unknown by revealing the unknown, if only to the subconscious, to be always a variant of the familiar while treating itsafely containing it-in familiar, consciously "known" and recognized, formats. The greatest universal human unknown is death. While fantasy alleviates our fear of death obliquely by ever suggesting that the unknown in general is merely the familiar transformed-and directly through depictions of life after death, forms of immortality, and both actual and symbolic resurrections-it simultaneously releases us from the thrall of death through its treatment of sexuality. For it is in fantasy most specifically that sex-the precursor and symbol of life, of renewal, of the survival of the species (an immortality of sorts) despite the deaths of individuals-is presented, in the contexts of these other psychic palliatives, as death's antidote. By far the most fantastic segment of Ulysses is the hallucinatory "Circe" or nighttown episode, the longest of the novel's chapters and that in which themes, images, catch phrases, and references from throughout the work swirl like debris in a maelstrom. The episode takes place in Bella Cohen's Purdon Street Brothel, and is thus the episode most concertedly and overtly concerned with sexuality. Yet it is also obsessively suffused with death and rebirth events, symbols, metaphors, and allusions. And it contains numerous technical and situational similarities, as well as allusions, not only to The Odyssey, but also to the "Walpurgis Night" section of Goethe's Faust and to Flaubert's Temptations of Saint Anthony, other fantastic works that contain central death and resurrection motifs. While there is much more that is fantastic in The Odyssey than what is encompassed by Odysseus' adventure on Circe's Island, Joyce concentrates the fantastic elements of Ulysses in the "Circe" episode, although some do occur elsewhere (e.g., "Cyclops"). In doing so, and thus linking the fantastic in Ulysses with sexuality through an episode that primarily consists of a series of death and resurrection fantasies, Joyce not only further elaborates the Odyssean parallels that suffuse 90

E. T. Culture: Anthropology in Outer Spaces

Journal of American Culture, Dec 1, 2006

William Burroughs’ Quartet of Science Fiction Novels as Dystopian Social Satire

Extrapolation

Comics as Literature: Plot Structure, Foreshadowing, and Irony in the Marvel Comics’ Avengers “Cosmic Epic”

Extrapolation

Adam Warlock: Marvel Comics’ Cosmic Christ Figure

Extrapolation

Alex Proyas's I, Robot: Much More Faithful to Asimov Than You Think

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 2011

... Daneel also provides Seldon with robot guardian and companion Dors Venabili, in Prelude, and ... more

Tarot Reading as Recombinant Narrative: Literature as Game/Game as Literature

Thta do ment has been rectioduced as r meshed from the person or orgenbatiorf otielnad0R Minor ch... more

The Use of Comics as an Approach to Introducing the Techniques and Terms of Narrative to Novice Readers

The pdblications of the Marvel Comics Group warrant serious consIderation as .a legitimate narrat... more The pdblications of the Marvel Comics Group warrant serious consIderation as .a legitimate narrative enterprise. While it is obvious. that these comic books can be used in the classroom as a source of reading material, it is tot so obvious that these comic books, with great economy, simplicity, and narrative density, can be used to further introduce novice readers to the techniques found in narrative and to the terms employed in the study and discussion of a narrative. The output of the Marvel Conics Group in particular is literate, is both narratively and pbSlosophically sophisticated, and is ethically and morally responsible. Some of the narrative tecbntques found in the stories, such as the Spider-Man episodes, include foreshadowing, a dramatic fiction narrator, flashback, irony, symbolism, metaphor, Biblical and historical allusions, and mythological allusions. 4MKM1 *

Review of Two Documentary Films from The Cinema Guild: Buried in the Back Yard and Other People's Pictures

The Journal of American Culture, 2007

''survivalist mom,'' that ''everyone should be a survivalist. .. as a way of life,'' or, like Ste... more