English Department

at the University of Michigan-Flint

Live Free or Die Hard

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A Look at Conversation Between Authors by Brian Gebhart In the first season of the original series of Star Trek, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise unwittingly awaken Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered warlord, from cryogenic sleep. At episode’s end, after a series of battles of both wits and fists, Kirk and

Happy Birthday, Manfred B. Lee! (January 11, 1905)

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In 1928 two cousins, Frederick Dannay (“Danny) and Manfred B. Lee (“Manny”), created Ellery Queen for a contest sponsored by McClure’s magazine and Stokes publishing house.  The prize for creating the best new detective novel was $7500.  The cousins won the contest, but McClure’s went bankrupt shortly afterwards, so they never collected their prize.  Between

Happy Birthday, J. R. R. Tolkein! (January 3, 1892)

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, best known for writing The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, “On Fairie Stories,” and other seminal works of fiction, was an Oxford professor and linguist who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary, the translation of the Jerusalem Bible, and other historical literature. After Tolkien’s death his son Christopher