Department of English : University of Vermont

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Department of English

Faculty - John Gennari

John Gennari, Associate Professor of English and ALANA U.S. Ethnic Studies

B.A. Harvard College
M.A., Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania

Area of expertise

Jazz Cultural Studies, Italian American Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Popular Culture and the Expressive Arts, U.S. Cultural History [C.V.]

Contact Information

Email: John Gennari

Office: 425 Old Mill

Office Hours: Mon. & Wed. 2:00 - 3:00 and by appointment

Courses Taught: Food, Culture, and Writing; Jazz, Literature and the Cultural Imagination; Black Popular Culture; Blood of My Blood: Imagining the Italian-American Family; Whiteness of a Different Color: Italian-Americans and Race

Selected Publications:

" Blaxploitation Bird," in Thriving on a Riff, ed. Graham Lock and David Murray (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008): 163-183.

"Red Sox Reflection," Vermont Quarterly (Fall 2008): 18-19.

BLOWIN' HOT AND COOL: JAZZ AND ITS CRITICS (University of Chicago Press, 2006) ASCAP-Deems Taylor Prize for Excellence in Music Criticism, 2007, John G. Cawelti Award for the Best Book in American Culture Studies, 2007

"Hipsters, Bluebloods, Rebels, and Hooligans: The Cultural Politics of the Newport Jazz Festival, 1954-1960," in UPTOWN CONVERSATIONS: NEW ESSAYS IN JAZZ STUDIES, eds. Robert O'Meally, Brent Edwards, and Farah Jasmine Griffin (Columbia University Press, 2004): 126-149.

"Miles Davis and the Jazz Critics," in MILES DAVIS AND AMERICAN CULTURE, ed. Gerald Early (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2001).

"Giancarlo Guisseppe Alessandro Esposito: Life in the Borderlands," in ARE ITALIANS WHITE? HOW RACE IS MADE IN AMERICA, ed. Jennifer Guglielmo (New York and London: Routledge, 2003).

"Mammissimo: Dolly and Frankie Sinatra and the Italian-American Mother/Son Thing," in FRANK SINATRA: HISTORY, POLITICS, AND ITALIAN AMERICAN CULTURE, ed. Stanislao Pugliese (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003)

Bridging the Two Americas: LIFE Looks at the 1960s," in LOOKING AT LIFE: CRITICAL ESSAYS ON AMERICA'S FAVORITE MAGAZINE, ed. Erika Doss (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001)

"Passing for Italian: Crooners and Gangsters in Crossover Culture," TRANSITION 72 (Fall 1997).

"Pulp Addiction: Tracking the Bird Obsession in Ross Russell's THE SOUND," BRILLIANT CORNERS 2 (December 1997).

"Slumming in High Places: Albert Murray's Intercontinental Ballistics," BRILLIANT CORNERS 1 (1996).

"A Weapon of Integration: Frank Marshall Davis and the Politics of Jazz," THE LANGSTON HUGHES REVIEW 14 (Spring 1996).

"Jazz Criticism: Its Development and Ideologies," BLACK AMERICAN LITERATURE FORUM 25 (Fall 1991)