Ursula K. Le Guin on American Masters

Explore the legacy of the feminist author who transformed U.S. literature with her science fiction.

• Fred Vigeant
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  Fred Vigeant is WITF's Director of Programming and Promotions for TV and Radio. Fred manages the schedules for our radio and television platforms. He also analyzes audience research and manages the public affairs program Smart Talk. Previously, Fred was at WRVO in Oswego, NY for 12 years serving in various roles including Program Director and before that Operations Manager. Fred graduated from the State University of New York College at Oswego with a B.A. in Mass Communications and Broadcasting.

Ursula Le Guin. The Oregonian/1972

American Masters – Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin begins with Le Guin’s early struggle to get published in the overwhelmingly male and realism-dominated climate of the early 1960s. Her first major breakthrough came with the young adult novel “A Wizard of Earthsea,” set in a magical archipelago inhabited by wizards and dragons. Along with groundbreaking novels like “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Dispossessed,” “Earthsea” crowned Le Guin as the queen of science fiction by the end of the decade. But as a woman and a genre writer, she still faced marginalization that hobbled her career until the last decade of her life, when she won the National Book Foundation’s lifetime achievement award and became the second living author to have their work anthologized by the Library of Congress.

The film dives into Le Guin’s childhood, steeped in the myths and stories of Native Americans she heard growing up in Berkeley, California, as the daughter of prominent 19th century anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and writer Theodora Kroeber, author of the influential book “Ishi in Two Worlds.” This deep childhood understanding of cultural relativism infused her work with a unique perspective; her otherworldly societies are all in some way reflections of our own.

At the heart of the film is Le Guin’s intimate journey of self-discovery as she comes into her own as a major feminist author. “What I was doing was being a woman pretending to think like a man,” she says, reflecting on why her early novels put men at the center of the action. But as second-wave feminism crashed into the science fiction world in the 1970s, Le Guin recognized her own internalized notions about heroism and power. Initially defensive, she found truth in the criticisms of her work. When revisiting the realm of “Earthsea,” she turned her gaze to its women, instead of powerful male wizards. The result was a transformation that echoed throughout the rest of her oeuvre. By embracing her own identity and learning to write as a woman, she eventually rose to the height of her literary power. Working across many genres, Le Guin received numerous honors, including the National Book Award, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, PEN-Malamud, and she was voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin on American Masters on WITF Thursday March 25 at 8:00pm. This program is also available along many other American Masters episodes for on-demand viewing if you are a WITF Passport subscriber through the PBS Video app.  Learn more about this exciting member benefit.

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