Alfred Kern (born Alfred Cohen, August 8, 1924 – June 2, 2009) was an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

. Born in

Alliance, Ohio Alliance is a city in eastern Stark County, Ohio, United States. With a small district lying in adjacent Mahoning County, the city is approximately northeast of Canton, southwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 21 ...

, he served in the

U.S. Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

from 1942 to 1946 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He legally changed his name to Alfred Kern in 1946. Kern graduated from Allegheny College in 1948 and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

in 1954. He served as the Frederick F. Seely Professor of English at

Allegheny College he, תגל ערבה ותפרח כחבצלת , mottoeng = "Add to your faith, virtue and to your faith, knowledge" (2 Peter 1:5)"The desert shall rejoice and the blossom as the rose" (Isaiah 35:1) , faculty = 193 ...

in Meadville,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, from the 1950s until his retirement in the mid-1980s. During the 1979–1980 academic year, Kern was distinguished visiting professor of English at the

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academy in El Paso County, Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs. It educates cadets for service in the officer corps of the United States Air Force and Uni ...

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, which inspired several articles relating the arts to the military. These were published in the USAF journals. During the 1980s, he experimented with writing poetry using computers with an Allegheny College colleague, James Sheridan. According to a family member, he lived in Pittsburgh after retiring from Allegheny for about 10 years (approximately 1987 to 1996), where he is still remembered. He died on June 2, 2009, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Books

* ''

The Width of Waters ''The Width of Waters'' is a novel by the American writer Alfred Kern. The story is set in 1953 in Buchanan, Pennsylvania (a fictionalized Meadville, north of Pittsburgh). The town is celebrating its sesquicentennial and Jack Gaitz, a young pub ...

'', novel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959). * '' Made in U.S.A.'', novel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966). * ''

The Trial of Martin Ross ''The Trial of Martin Ross'' is a novel by the American writer Alfred Kern. It is set in the late 1960s over Thanksgiving weekend in Buchanan, Pennsylvania (a fictionalized Meadville, north of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the ...

'', novel (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971).

Articles and papers

* "Hang the Enola Gay", published in ''War, Literature, & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities'' Vol. 7, No. 1 pring/Summer 1995 USAF Academy. Anthologized in ''Understanding the literature of World War II'' by James H. Meredith, Greenwodd Publishing Group, 1999, , *"Waiting for Euripides", published in ''Journal of Professional Military Ethics'', USAF Academy, April 1980. Anthologized in ''Military Ethics: Reflections on Principles'', edited by Maham M. Wakin, James Kempf. DIANE Publishing, 1994, , *"Humanities at the Hanoi Hilton",''War, Literature, & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities'', USAF Academy. Vol 10, No. 2 Fall/Winter 1998 (see www.wlajournal.com/backissues.htm) *"Barcelona", A Poem, ''War, Literature, & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities'', USAF Academy. Vol 1, No 2 1989–1990 *From "Vows and Infidelities", fiction, ''War, Literature, & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities'', USAF Academy. Vol 7, No. 2 Fall/Winter 1995 *"About Literary Wars" ''War, Literature, & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities'', USAF Academy. Vol 16, Nos.1&2 2005 Double Issue *''Basic Writing: The Student as Programmer'', Paper presented at the 1986 ADE Summer Seminar at the USAF Academy. Referenced by Robert E. Cummings in ''Coding with power: Toward a rhetoric of computer coding and composition'', published in ''Computers and Composition'' Volume 23, issue 4 2006 pp 430–443 *"GOTO Poetry", published in ''Perspectives in Computing'' #3, pp 44–52 1983. Cited in ''The Quest for Meaning'' by Louis Marinoff (p. 74), in ''Mind Versus Computer: Were Dreyfus and Winograd Right?'' By Matja Gams, Marcin Paprzycki, Xindong Wu, Penn State Press, 1997 ,

References

Sources

* ''

Contemporary Authors Online ''Contemporary Authors'' is a reference work which has been published by Gale since 1962. It provides short biographies and bibliographies of contemporary and near-contemporary writers. ''Contemporary Authors'' does not have selective inclusion cr ...

''. The Gale Group, 2002. PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000053569. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kern, Alfred 1924 births 2009 deaths Writers from Pittsburgh United States Air Force Academy faculty