H. Nearing, Jr.
Full Name: | Homer Czar Nearing |
Born: | April 15, 1915 Springfield, Missouri, USA |
Died: | April 29, 2003 Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA |
Occupation: | Professor, Writer |
Nationality: | American |
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Biography
Nearing is best known for his humorous Professor Cleanth Penn Ransom series published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the early 1950s, with the protagonist being a surreal head of the mathematics department at Uh-Uh University. One of Nearing's Professor Ransom short stories "The Maladjusted Classroom" was reprinted in the 1954 edition of The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction while "The Cerebrative Psittacoid" was reprinted in Best SF, edited by Edmund Crispin. His story "The Mathematical Voodoo," about a teacher struggling to teach math to students, was reprinted in Fantasia Mathematica, a 1958 anthology on mathematical topics compiled by Clifton Fadiman. A sequel featuring Professor Ransom entitled "The Hermeneutical Doughnut" was published in Fadiman's sequel anthology "The Mathematical Magpie".
In addition to writing fiction, Nearing was a published expert on historical English poetry and on British traditions concerning Julius Caesar. He was a student at the University of Pennsylvania, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and as an undergraduate competed on the university's varsity swimming team, earning a letter in 1934, 1935, and 1936. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees, he completed his doctorate there in 1944, with the dissertation English Historical Poetry, 1599-1641.
After working as a schoolteacher at Perkiomen School and the Episcopal Academy and as a manager at a shipbuilding company, he became a professor of English at Pennsylvania Military College, which became Widener University in 1972. The Homer C. Nearing, Jr. Distinguished Professorship at Widener University is named for him.
Works in the WWEnd Database
Non Series Works |
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