Alan Elms: Personality in Psychobiography Interviewed by Kate Isaacson for the psychohistorical journal Clio’s Psyche Alan Elms was born in 1938 in Texas, and grew up in Arkansas, California, and Kentucky. He received a BA in psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1960 and earned his PhD in personality and social psychology at Yale University [...]
Review of Cordwainer Smith [Paul M. A. Linebarger], The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith. (James A. Mann, ed.) Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 1993. Reviewed by Alan C. Elms First: Buy this book. Urge your library to order this book. It contains every published piece of shorter fiction by one [...]
I’ve just finished transferring all the content (with a few minor exceptions) from my old website, ulmus.net, to this new website. The few things that I didn’t bring over to the new site were very minor items that (once upon a time) I thought I’d eventually expand, but never got around to. The content transferal, [...]
Alan C. Elms There are two major archives of the papers of Paul M. A. Linebarger (aka Cordwainer Smith). The bulk of his fiction manuscripts, including his science fiction, is held by the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. The bulk of his papers dealing with China, psychological warfare, and other topics connected [...]
Alan C. Elms In the Cordwainer Smith stories, Paul Linebarger drew directly from many languages for the names of characters, planets, etc. In certain instances the names are multi-lingual puns; in others, their origins remain obscure. Linebarger played with the changes in pronunciation of current-day names that might occur over thousands of years of future [...]
Elms, A. C. (1984). The creation of Cordwainer Smith. Science-Fiction Studies, 11, 264-283. (Available online at http://www.stevesilberman.com/linebarger/elms.creation.pdf/) Elms, A. C. (1988). Cordwainer Smith (Paul M. A. Linebarger). In J. Gunn (Ed.), The New Science Fiction Encyclopedia, 422-423. New York: Viking Penguin. Elms, A. C. (1991). Origins of the underpeople: Cats, Kuomintang and Cordwainer Smith. In [...]
Alan C. Elms [This list of Frequently Asked Questions will be considerably expanded when I have a little free time to put into it. The questions below are mostly filler items, though the answers are accurate.] Q: What was Cordwainer Smith’s real name? A: Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger. Q: Where did the term “Abba-dingo” come [...]
Alan C. Elms Anyone who’s interested in pursuing a career in psychobiography, whether as a college professor or as an “independent scholar,” should first take a look at the Handbook of Psychobiography, edited by William Todd Schultz and published in 2005 by Oxford University Press. Then look at Todd Schultz’s web page, http://www.psychobiography.com/. If you’re [...]
Alan C. Elms There are personality theories that I admire but never use. Those listed below are theories that I have actually used in doing psychobiography. None of them works for every biographical subject, but each one works some of the time. For examples of use, see my book Uncovering Lives, or my chapter titled [...]
Alan C. Elms There are Freudian and Jungian and Skinnerian organizations, but I don’t belong to any of those. The American Psychological Association’s Division 8 calls itself the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and I belong to it, but it currently has little to do with personality theory. (Psychologists interested in personality theory are [...]