CW2001 Program - Computers and Writing

Thursday
8:15 — 11:00
C&W Goes to the Movies
Pruis Hall
This year’s film is What If A Film About Judith Merril
(www.telefilm.gc.ca/en/prod/tv/tv99/184.htm). It is produced by
Imageries P.B. Ltd., and directed by Helen Klodawsky; Richard Elson is
the producer. It won the Gold Plaque at the 2000 Chicago International
Film Festival. Science fiction writer Judith Merril, who died shortly after
the filming, rocketed to success with her first story “That Only a Mother”
in 1948. Merril reminds us that the concept of the space program grew
out of science fiction — that the wanderings of man’s (and woman’s)
imagination leads to unknown worlds. The gap between imagination
and implementation has become very short. Judith Merril was in the
illustrious company of Arthur Clarke and Carl Sagan in the formation of
the Planetary Society, a group to contemplate the universe with science,
imagination, and philosophy. Even those who are not aficionados of
science fiction may want to take another look at the genre after being
in the company of this passionate, politically committed and daringly
inventive feminist, a pacesetter in her field.
20 Computers & Writing 2001