Scott Abbott

Teacher and Writer in Woodland Hills, Utah

Scott Abbott

Teacher and Writer in Woodland Hills, Utah

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I received my Ph.D. in German Literature from Princeton University in 1979. Then I taught at Vanderbilt University, BYU, and Utah Valley State College. At Utah Valley University, I directed the Program in Integrated Studies for its initial 13 years and was also Chair of the Department of Humanities and Philosophy for three years. My publications include a book on Freemasonry and the German Novel, three co-authored books with Zarko Radakovic (REPETITIONS; VAMPIRES & A REASONABLE DICTIONARY; and WE: ON FRIENDSHIP published in Serbo-Croatian in Belgrade and in English with Punctum Books and Elik Press), a book with Sam Rushforth (WILD RIDES AND WILDFLOWERS, Torrey House Press), a "fraternal meditation" called IMMORTAL FOR QUITE SOME TIME (University of Utah Press), a book of collected essays about the role of a university, BYU to be specific (By Common Consent Press) and translations of three books by Austrian author Peter Handke, of an exhibition catalogue called "The German Army and Genocide," and, with Dan Fairbanks, of Gregor Mendel's important paper on hybridity in peas. More famously, my children are in the process of creating good lives for themselves: as a corporate receptionist, as a principal of an international school in China, as an ecologist and science writer, as a jazz musician, as a parole officer, as a contractor, as a seasonal worker (Alaska and Park City, Utah), and as parents. I share my life with UVU historian Lyn Bennett, with whom I have written a cultural history of barbed wire -- THE PERFECT FENCE (Texas A&M University Press).