John Gennari

BIO

John Gennari is Professor of English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont. He is an American Studies-trained U.S. cultural historian with specializations in jazz and popular music, race and ethnicity, Italian American culture, food, sports, and cultural criticism. He is the author of Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge (University of Chicago Press, 2017. His earlier book, Blowin’ Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics (University of Chicago Press, 2006), was awarded the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for Excellence in Music Criticism and the John Cawelti Award for the Best Book in American Culture. Gennari has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, and the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia. 

​​He received his B.A. from Harvard College for Social Studies in 1982 and continued his education in American Civilization studies at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned his Ph.D.

Courses

• Jazz, Literature, and Film
• Italian American Literature and Culture
• Food and American Culture
• Multiracialism and American Culture
• Black Popular Culture

Publications

John Gennari Publications (DOCX)

Awards and Achievements

• University of Vermont, College of Arts and Sciences, Dean’s Lecture Award, Spring 2008
• ASCAP-Deems Taylor Prize for Excellence in Music Criticism, 2007
• John G. Cawelti Award for the Best Book in American Culture Studies, 2007
• Tim Shiner Ally Award (“for strong commitment to work within the UVM ALANA community in an effort to create social change”), 2007
• UVM Women’s Center Outstanding Ally Award (“for your significant contribution to feminist and anti-sexist activism on the campus”), 2007.

Area(s) of expertise

U.S. ethnic studies, jazz studies, food studies, popular culture, cultural criticism