Robert Scholes (1929-2016)

Literary critic Robert Scholes, 87, died December 9, 2016 in Rhode Island. He wrote numerous works of literary theory, including several of SF interest: The Fabulators (1967), Structural Fabulation: An Essay on Fiction of the Future (1975), Science Fiction: History — Science — Vision (1977, with Eric S. Rabkin), and Fabulation and Metafiction (1979). He co-edited essay anthologies Bridges to Fantasy (1982) and Co-Ordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy (1983) with Rabkin and George Edgar Slusser, both in the Eaton Conference Papers series. He wrote many essays on SF as well, notably “The Left Hand of Difference: Le Guin & Derrida” (1983). In all he wrote 15 books and co-wrote ten more.

Robert Edward Scholes was born May 19, 1929 in Brooklyn NY. He attended Yale, graduating in 1950, then served in the US Navy from 1952-55. He earned his PhD at Cornell in 1959, and taught at the University of Virginia and the University of Iowa. He became a professor at Brown University in 1970, founding their semiotics program. He retired from full-time teaching in 1999, and was then named research professor of modern culture and media at Brown. Scholes was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998, and served as president of the Semiotic Society of America from 1989-90 and of the Modern Language Association of America in 2004. He is survived by his wife Jo Ann.

For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.