Paul Jaussen
literature is equipment for living
The Art of Breaking Worlds: On Contemporary Poetry and Public Language, is now available for preorder from Northwestern University Press."Delightfully interdisciplinary and wholly persuasive, The Art of Breaking Worlds is a valuable, thoughtful book that will resonate both within the field and beyond."—Stephanie Burt, Harvard University"At once a dazzling analysis and ambitious thesis, The Art of Breaking Worlds offers an indelible and salient snapshot of twenty-first-century poetics."—Anthony Reed, Vanderbilt University
About
Paul Jaussen is Associate Professor of Literature and Chair of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Communication Department at Lawrence Technological University. His research focuses on poetics as the intersection of theoretical conceptualization and formal analysis. His first book, Writing In Real Time: Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital (Cambridge UP, 2017), deploys systems theory as a model for comprehending the complex, adaptive forms of the modern and contemporary American long poem. His second book, The Art of Breaking Worlds: On Contemporary Poetry and Public Language (Northwestern UP, 2026), shows how poetics provides a path for building new imagined possibilities in the face of social disaster.Alongside his literary criticism, he has published creative writing and poetry reviews in Three Fold Press, Six Feet of Distance, Chicago Review, and Jacket2. His novel manuscript, "Of That Threatened Beauty in Which We are Stranded" was longlisted in YesYes Books Open Reading Period in Fiction, 2024.
Photo by John Totten
Writing
Books
The Art of Breaking Worlds: On Contemporary Poetry and Public Language (Northwestern UP, 2026)A Companion to American Poetry, co-editor (Wiley Blackwell, 2022)Writing in Real Time: Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital (Cambridge UP, 2017)Select Critical Essays
"Paterson’s Analogies: Iteration, Recursion, and Contingency" in Rethinking the North American Long Poem, ed. Ridvan Askin and Julius Greve, 2024"Forensic Poetics," Criticism, 2023"The Art of Distinction," New Literary History, 2023"Nathaniel Mackey’s Late Style,” in Nathaniel Mackey, Destination Out, ed. Jeanne Heuving, 2021Select Creative Work and Reviews
Review of Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Complete Drafts, Chicago Review, 2026"Untited Shot," Three Fold Press, 2021"No Shelter," Six Feet of Distance, 2020
Photo by Steve Rost
Teaching
Dr. Jaussen's teaching has primarily focused on providing a meaningful literary education within the context of STEM institutions. His courses offer students the chance to read slowly and deeply while considering how the literary imagination addresses topics of technology, infrastructure, and society. Recent courses include “Reading and Writing Detroit” (syllabus), "What Is Freedom?" (syllabus) and "Slow Reading Moby-Dick" (syllabus).Drawing on his work in the classroom, he has also contributed to curricular development and pedagogical training. He served as co-PI of the HHMI Inclusive Excellence grant through LTU's Course-Based Research Experience initiative, led a faculty team that redesigned LTU's university-wide humanities core curriculum, and was an invited speaker at Cambridge University's Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing.As chair of the HSSC department, he provides administrative oversight to degree programs in diverse fields, including the MS in Human Factors and Cognition, the BA in Media Communication, and BS in Technological Humanities.
Contact
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: @pjaussen
Substack: In progress...stay tuned!
CV available here