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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge
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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge Hardback - 2017

by John Gennari

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Reader reviews for Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge

From the publisher

In the United States, African American and Italian cultures have been intertwined for more than a hundred years. From as early as nineteenth-century African American opera star Thomas Bowers--"The Colored Mario"--all the way to hip-hop entrepreneur Puff Daddy dubbing himself "the Black Sinatra," the affinity between black and Italian cultures runs deep and wide. Once you start looking, you'll find these connections everywhere. Sinatra croons bel canto over the limousine swing of the Count Basie band. Snoop Dogg deftly tosses off the line "I'm Lucky Luciano 'bout to sing soprano." Like the Brooklyn pizzeria and candy store in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever, or the basketball sidelines where Italian American coaches Rick Pitino and John Calipari mix it up with their African American players, black/Italian connections are a thing to behold--and to investigate.

In Flavor and Soul, John Gennari spotlights this affinity, calling it "the edge"--now smooth, sometimes serrated--between Italian American and African American culture. He argues that the edge is a space of mutual emulation and suspicion, a joyous cultural meeting sometimes darkened by violent collision. Through studies of music and sound, film and media, sports and foodways, Gennari shows how an Afro-Italian sensibility has nourished and vitalized American culture writ large, even as Italian Americans and African Americans have fought each other for urban space, recognition of overlapping histories of suffering and exclusion, and political and personal rispetto.

Thus, Flavor and Soul is a cultural contact zone--a piazza where people express deep feelings of joy and pleasure, wariness and distrust, amity and enmity. And it is only at such cultural edges, Gennari argues, that America can come to truly understand its racial and ethnic dynamics.

Details

  • Title Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge
  • Author John Gennari
  • Binding Hardback
  • Edition Hardback
  • Pages 296
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of Chicago Press
  • Publication date 2017
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
  • ISBN 9780226428321 / 022642832X
  • Weight 1.2 lbs (0.54 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 in (23.11 x 15.75 x 2.54 cm)
  • Themes
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
    • Ethnic Orientation: Italian
  • Category Ethnic Issues
  • Library of Congress subjects Popular culture - United States, United States - Ethnic relations
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2016029051
  • Dewey Decimal Code 305.851

Media reviews

Citations

  • Choice, 09/01/2017, Page 0
  • Publishers Weekly, 01/09/2017, Page 0

About the author

John Gennari is associate professor of English and critical race and ethnic studies at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics, also published by the University of Chicago Press. He lives in South Burlington, Vermont, with his wife and their twin daughters.

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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge
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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge

by Gennari, John

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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at its African American Edge

by John Gennari

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Flavor and Soul

by Gennari, John,

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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge
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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge

by Gennari, John

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  • Hardback
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Illustrated
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Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780226428321 / 022642832X
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University of Chicago Press, 2017-03-18. Illustrated. hardcover. New. 9.10x6.20x1.00. Buy with confidence. Excellent Customer Service & Return policy.
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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge
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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge

by Gennari, John

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780226428321 / 022642832X
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Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780226428321 / 022642832X
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