Description: Flavor and SoulItalian America at Its African American Edge Author(s): John Gennari Format: Hardback Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, United States Imprint: University of Chicago Press ISBN-13: 9780226428321, 978-0226428321 Synopsis 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.
Price: 27.03 GBP
Location: Aldershot
End Time: 2025-01-07T09:40:33.000Z
Shipping Cost: 27.64 GBP
Product Images
Item Specifics
Return postage will be paid by: Buyer
Returns Accepted: Returns Accepted
After receiving the item, your buyer should cancel the purchase within: 60 days
Return policy details:
Book Title: Flavor and Soul
Number of Pages: 296 Pages
Language: English
Publication Name: Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge
Publisher: T.H.E. University of Chicago Press
Publication Year: 2017
Subject: History
Item Height: 233 mm
Item Weight: 550 g
Type: Textbook
Author: John Gennari
Item Width: 161 mm
Format: Hardcover
