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 wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

and

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

Formative years

Born in

Alliance, Ohio Alliance is a city in Stark County, Ohio, United States. The population was 21,672 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It was established in 1854 by the merger of three smaller communities and was a manufacturing and railroad hub in t ...

, 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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. 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 university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

in 1954.

Academic career

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

Allegheny College Allegheny College is a private liberal arts college in Meadville, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1815, Allegheny is the oldest college in continuous existence under the same name west of the Allegheny Mountains. It is a member of the G ...

in Meadville,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

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

United States Air Force Academy The United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is a United States service academies, United States service academy in Air Force Academy, Colorado, Air Force Academy Colorado, immediately north of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs. I ...

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous c ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, an academic experience which inspired several articles relating the arts to the military. These were published in 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 for roughly ten years after retiring from Allegheny College (from approximately 1987 to 1996), where he is still remembered.

Death

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 ...

'', 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 All ...

'', 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 that has been published by Gale since 1962. The work provides short biographies and bibliographies of contemporary and near-contemporary writers and is a major source of information on over 116,000 liv ...

''. 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