Haris Durrani
Sep 17, 2021

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Thank you for your comment! Yes, I was confused about this, too, when I first heard the interview. In the interview, Herbert refers to a "Campbell" but doesn't give a first name. However, he also refers to him as the editor of the magazine in which Dune (the 1st novel) first appeared--which is Analog. "John W. Campbell" was editor of Analog at the time, and my understanding is that he had a tremendous influence on Golden Age SF, particularly on its individualist strain. I'm fairly confident this is who Herbert was referring to, Joseph John Campbell is the literary scholar who famously wrote about the hero's journey/monomyth. So perhaps, to avoid confusion, I should have referred to him as a proponent of "individualism" as opposed to "hero's journey"! Very confusing, I know!

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Haris Durrani
Haris Durrani

Written by Haris Durrani

Author, Technologies of the Self. | PhD student @Princeton. JD, BS @Columbia. Law, history, technology. Outer space. Postcolonialism. Modernity. Dune.

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