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.
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.
Reviews
"In this thought-provoking, academic, yet often lively study, Gennari explores the intersections between African-American and Italian-American culture... Whether he's discussing the relationship between Italian-American basketball coaches and black players or the importance of food to both cultures, Gennari shows that despite tensions between them, black and Italian-Americans have much in common and understand one another better than many outsiders realize" – Publishers Weekly
"There is no other than Gennari – a huge-hearted scholar of voracious curiosity and impeccable taste – to productively mine what happens when black and Italian meet. He sees the third thing those two galaxies of history and self-expression create at the crossroads. Cooking and eating, sports, film, and, of course, music are where the most potent and telling cultural action is, where we go to experience the true beauty and meaning of life in a world where we may know ourselves deeply along cultural lines but then find so much more at the recombinant intersection. 'Flavor and Soul' is brilliant, encyclopedic scholarship that also accomplishes the rare work of speaking directly to and from the heart. This is a passionate treasure book of scholarship and ultimately a handbook for living a rich, surprising, culturally-guided life" – Elizabeth Alexander, author of "The Light of the World: A Memoir"
"'Flavor and Soul' is so damn good. The reader – whether passingly curious or utterly invested – is going to have a ball and come out wiser, better informed, and more determined to do the right thing, too. Gennari's purpose is to identify, unpack, meditate upon, reenact and reinflect that dimension of Italian America created in tension with, and, especially, in mutual emulation of, African America. After all we're talking about Sinatra and Miles, 'The Godfather' and '70s blaxploitation, the cult of food TV, Mookie and Pino then Travolta and Jackson, Calipari and his latest All-African American crew vs. Izzo and basketball's la via vecchia, and hip-hoppers galore. Why is this approach such a revelation if so much of it is so darn obvious? American writers and intellectuals, with a few quiet exceptions, have paid attention at best only to each other's accounts of these matters rather than to the arts, the artists, and their aficionadas, who really do have different stories – especially Gennari's story – to tell" – Thomas J. Ferraro, author of "Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America"
"In this compelling, original book, Gennari ?stylishly rethinks everything from racial and ?ethnic boundaries to the oeuvres of virtuosi as different as Spike Lee and Rollie Massimino. With wit, compassion, and a sharp eye for what matters most, he manages to take seriously the most sentimental and wishful renditions of identity while also pushing past them in? to edgier, harder-minded territory" – Carlo Rotella, author of "Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories"
