SIR PAUL

Another good colleague is on his way out of State College.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     One of the people I've been happiest to know since coming to Penn State is Paul Youngquist.  Long-time followers of this blog will remember seeing him playing with his jazz band in earlier scenes from around town.  Paul is a tremendous scholar and critic.  His essay on Amiri Baraka and Science Fiction in the special issue of African American Review dedicated to Baraka's work is a model of insight and instigation.  His two powerful books on Blake and on monstrosities (do I repeat myself?) are significant contributions to studies in Romanticism.  A few years ago Paul co-taught a graduate seminar on Free Jazz with Billy Joe Harris, which culminated in a performance of the reunited New York Art Quartet.  And his guitar playing was something I will miss almost as much as I'll miss talking to him every day around here.

Paul is off to another of my old stomping grounds, Boulder, Colorado, where he will join the English Department at U of Colorado, being a Romanticist under the Flat Irons, dropping by Naropa, enjoying the expanded opportunities for jazz that he will find in the Boulder/Denver region.