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Scott Cairns

Professor of English
Director of Creative Writing Program
Director of the Center for the Literary Arts
office
: 226 Tate
phone: 573-882-0669
email: cairnss@missouri.edu
office hours: MTWR by appointment

Research and teaching areas:
modern and contemporary American literature
poetics
creative writing

Scott Cairns

Scott Cairns teaches modern and contemporary American literature and creative writing. His poems have appeared in Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Image, Spiritus, and Tiferet, and have been anthologized in Upholding Mystery (Oxford UP '96), Best Spiritual Writing (Harper Collins '98 and '00), and Best American Spiritual Writing (Houghton Mifflin, ‘04, ’05, and '06). His poetry collections include Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected(Paraclete Press, ‘06), Philokalia (Zoo Press '02), Recovered Body (Braziller '98), Figures for the Ghost (U Georgia P '94), The Translation of Babel, (U of Georgia P '90), and The Theology of Doubt (Cleveland State UP '85). With W. Scott Olsen, he co-edited The Sacred Place (U of Utah P '96), an anthology of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His spiritual memoir, Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven, (HarperSanFrancisco) and a collection of adaptations and translations, Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life (Paraclete Press), both appeared in 2007. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. His book-length essay, The End of Suffering, will appear from Paraclete Press in November, 2009.

Education

  • PhD 1990, University of Utah
  • MFA, 1981, Bowling Green State University
  • MA, 1979, Hollins College
  • BA, 1977, Western Washington University

Selected Publications

Courses Taught

  • English 2000: Midrashim as Generative Model
  • English 2000: Frost, Stevens, Moore, and Bishop
  • English 8530: Advanced Writing of Poetry
  • English 4520 Advanced Creative Nonfiction
  • English 7520 Advanced Creative Nonfiction
  • English 7530 Advanced Poetry Writing

Selected Awards

  • John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
  • Best American Spiritual Writing, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008
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