SAMUELE F. S. PARDINI
Curriculum Vitae
SAMUELE F. S. PARDINI
PO Box 1593 • Elon, NC 27244
Tel: 615-517-8500
dualcitizenshipholder(American and Italian)
EDUCATION
Fall 1997 - Spring 2005Doctor of Philosophy, Comparative Literature
State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
Dissertation: “The Engines of History: The Automobile in Italian and American Literary Cultures, 1908-1943.”
Dissertation Committee: Professors Joseph Conte, Leslie Fiedler (Co-Directors), and David Johnson.
Examination Fields:
- 20th Century American Literature and Culture
- European Avant-Garde and Modernism
- Literary Criticism: The Novel
- Critical Theory and Intellectual History
Fall 1997 – Fall 2000 Master of Arts, Comparative Literature
State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
Fall 1989 – Spring 1995Doctoral Degree, Letters and Philosophy, Modern Literature
University of Pisa, Italy
Spring 1993Erasmus Program, Literature and History
University College Galway, Republic of Ireland
FACULTY EXPERIENCE
2010- presentAssistant Professor, Tenure-Track, World Languages and Cultures (Italian) and American Studies
2007 - 2010Visiting Assistant Professor, American Studies and Foreign Languages (Italian)
Elon University
2005 – 2007Lecturer, American Studies and Italian Studies
Vanderbilt University
2003 and 2004Lecturer, English and Italian
State University of New York at Buffalo
Fall 1997 - Fall 2000Teaching Assistant, English, Comparative Literature, Italian
State University of New York at Buffalo
RESEARCH INTEREST
- 20th Century American Studies,African American Literature, Multi-Ethnic American Literature, European Avant-Garde and Modernism, Literary Criticism, Popular Culture, Cinema.
PUBLICATIONS
Books:
In the Name of the Mother.Italian Americans, African Americans and Modernity(in progress).
Modernity on Wheels: Speed and Automobile Culture from Futurism to Fascism and the New Deal, manuscript in
progress optioned by Counterpoint Press, Berkeley, CA.
The Devil Gets His Due. The Uncollected Essays of Leslie Fiedler, edited and with an introduction by Samuele F.
S. Pardini, (Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2008; paperback edition Soft Skull 2010).
Reviewed in:
- Americana, Vol. VI, N. 2, Fall 2010 at
- The Broklyn Rail at
- Popmatters.com, March 2010, available at
fiedler.-ed./
- Washington City Paper, recommended reading blog 2/19/2010
- Barnes & Noble Review website, available at
- Barnes & Noble Review website, available at:
- American Book Review, Vol. 30 n.4 May/June 2009
- Times Literary Supplement, 1/2/2009
- TheLos Angeles Times, 5/4/2008 (this review also appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, The Hartford Courant, The Baltimore Sun, The Morning Call)
- The Los Angeles Times, 4/13/2008 (this review also appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Orlando Sentinel, The Hartford Courant, The Baltimore Sun, The Morning Call)
- The Buffalo News, 3/16/ 2008
- Bookforum, April/May 2008
- The Journal of American Culture, Vol.32 n.2
- The Journal of Popular Culture, forthcoming
- Modernism/Modernity, forthcoming
Editing, introduction, and translation of:
Leslie A. Fiedler, Arrivederci Alle Armi. L’America, il cinema, la guerra, ed. and with an introduction by Samuele
F. S. Pardini, (Rome: DonzelliEditore, 2005).
Reviewed in:
- La Stampa-Tuttolibri 2/4/2006
Leslie A. Fiedler, Vacanze Romane: Un critico americano a spasso nell’Italia letteraria, (Roman Holiday. An
American Critic in Italy), ed. and with an introduction by Samuele F. S. Pardini (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 2004).
Reviewed in:
- La Stampa-Tuttolibri 11/2004
- Il Corriere della Sera 10/31/2004
- La Stampa 10/9/2004
- Il Manifesto 10/2004
- L’Espresso 10/2004
- Il Sole 24Ore 9/27/2004
- IL Messagero, 10/2004
Scholarly Articles:
“Bruce Zirilli: The Italian Sides of Bruce Springsteen,” inKenneth Womack, Jerry Zolten, and Mark Bernhard, eds., Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies and the Runaway American Dream, (London, UK: Ashgate Publishing Group), 2013, pp.97-111. Originally in Italian Americana, vol. 28 n. 2 Winter 2010, pp.36-50
“The Automobile,” forthcoming in Futurism: A Microhistory, Sasha Bru, Luca Somigli, and bart Van der Boschee, eds., (London: Maney Publishing, 2013).
"Il Pavese di Leslie Fiedler e l’America di Pavese: Note su letteratura e critica come pratica democratica," in Proceedings of the Symposium on Cesare pavese, SFSU, October 2008, ed. by Chirstopher Coccolino and Elisabetta Nielsen, Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore, 2011, pp. 61-72.
“Steinbeck, Guthrie, and Springsteen. From the Politics of the Frontier to the Politics of Sharing,” in Dialogue VII: “The Grapes of Wrath”, ed. Michael Meyer, Rodopi Dialogue Series, (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009) pp. 839-66.
“Before the Future/ists. Or, the Rise and Fall of the Machine. Luigi Barzini’s Peking to Paris,” in Annali d’Italianistica 2009: A Century of Futurism, 1909-2009, ed. by Luisetti Federico and Luca Somigli, vol. 27,2009, 209-224.
“Sympathy for the Devil. Looking Backward for a New Tradition,” in Fiedler, Leslie, The Devil Gets His Due. The Uncollected Essays of Leslie Fiedler, edited and with an introduction by Samuele F. S. Pardini (Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2008) pp. xiii-xxviii.
“The Electric Education of Henry Adams,” in Technoculture. A Special Issue of Interdisciplinary Humanities, ed. by Keith Dorwick and Kevin Moberly, May 2007, pp. 21-35.
“Ordinary Faces, Extraordinary Stories.”Notes on “Speak Truth to Power.Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing the World. An Exhibition of Photographs by Eddie Adams,” CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY, April 13 - May 26, 2002. Buffalo Report, available at:
“Bruce Springsteen’s ‘American Skin’.” In Racing In The Street: The Bruce Springsteen Reader, ed. June Skinner Sawyers, foreword by Martin Scorsese, (New York: Penguin House, 2004), pp. 329-36; originally in Artvoice,June 29-July 5, 2000 vol.11 n26, pp.10-13.
“The Machine, the Garden, and the Old Harvard Socialist.A Conversation with Leo Marx.”In Acoma. Rivista Internazionale di Studi NordAmericani, 8.22, (Inverno 2002) pp. 87-101.
“Love, Death, and Other Stories.A Conversation with Leslie Fiedler.” In Acoma, Rivista Internazionale di Studi Nordamericani 7.19 (Primavera/Estate 2000) pp. 24-32.
Reviews:
Review of Freeedom Readers. The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy, by
Dennis Looney, forthcoming in Rivista di Studi Italiani.
Review of Dion. The Wanderer Talks Truth, by Dion DiMucci, forthcoming in Italian Americana.
Review of CesarePavese e Renato Poggioli.<A Meeting of Minds> Cartegggio 1947-1950, ed. by Silvia Savioli, in Annalid’Italianistica, vol. 29, 2011, bookshelf.
Review of American Racist. The Life and Films of Thomas Dixon, by Anthony Slide, in American Studies Journal, 49:2.
Review of Voices in a Mask, by Geoffrey Green, in American Book Review, Volume 30, Issue 2, March-April 2009, p. 28.
Review of Falling Man, by Don DeLillo, in Italian Americana, Vol. XXVII, 1, Winter 2009, pp.109-10.
Review of Driving Women. Fiction and Automobile Culture in Twentieth Century America, by Deborah Clarke, in Modern Fiction Studies, 54 4 Winter 2008, pp. 902-05.
Encyclopedia Entries:
“Roberto Rossellini,” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2011, Robert L. Fastiggi ed., (Florence, KY: Gale, 2011) 2011, pp. 691-92.
“Vittorio DeSica,” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2011, Robert L. Fastiggi ed., (Florence, KY: Gale, 2011) pp. 724-25.
“Bernardo Bertolucci,” in The New Catholic Encyclopedia Supplement 2011, Robert L. Fastiggi ed., (Florence, KY: Gale, 2011) pp.89-91.
Entry for “Italian Literature,” in Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity, ed. by Daniel Patte (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2010), 609-11.
COURSES TAUGHT
Elon University
GST/AMS 318 A: “The Fifties in America.”
GST/AMS 314: “Modern Cinema: The Gangster and the Mafia.”
GST 223 A: “Themes in American Literature and Culture.” (Open only to first-year international
students).
GST/AMS 219 A: “Modernity on Wheels:Speed and Automobile Culture in 20th Century America.”
(Winter Term seminar).
GST/AMS 214 A: “The Italian-American Experience.”
AMS 210 A: “American Concepts: Introduction to American Studies.”
Vanderbilt University
ITA/ENG 241: “Modernity on Wheels. Literature and the Automobile.”
AMST 294: “The Italian-American Experience.”
FS 240: “Italian American Cinema.”
SUNY at Buffalo
English, Comparative Literature, and Cinema
ENG 221: “Modernity on Wheels. Americans and the Automobile,” (S04).
ENG 372: “The American 1950s - The Tumultuous Fifties,” (S02).
ENG 441: “Contemporary Cinema,” (F01, F02).
ENG 299: “Humanities One: Shaping Justice,” (F99).
ENG 222: “Survey of American Literature II,” (F03).
COL 203: “The Italian-American Experience,”(F02, F01).
First Year Composition
ENG 101: “Writing The Essay, Making the World,” (F98).
ENG 101: “Writing the War,” (F99).
ENG 101: “Writing the Enlightenment,” (F04).
ENG 102: “Writing the Ethnic Experience,” (F03).
Second Year Composition
ENG 201: “Writing Essays and Building Bridges,” (S04).
INVITED TALKS
March 2, 2012“Booker T. Washington in Southern Italy.Observations on Women's Life and Parallels with the American South.”UNC Greensboro Atlantic World Research Network and Black History Month, “Breaking Colored Barriers.”
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
November 15-18, 2012“Revising and Developing American Studies Curricula/Programs in the Twenty-First Century,” The Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
April 27-28, 2012 “Images of Italian Americans in African-American Literature during Jim Crow,” John D. Calandra Institute Conference Re-Vising White Ethnicity, New York City, NY.
October 20-22, 2011 “The Dago (Bruce Springsteen) and the Darkie (Clarence Clemons).Or, Love and Death on the American Stage,” American Italian Historical Association, Tampa. FL.
October 7-9, 2011 “The Automobile, Speed, and the Politics of Writing: On Proust and Marinetti,” Modernist Studies Association, Buffalo, NY.
March 10-12, 2010 “New World, Old Woman. On EmanueleCrialese’sGolden Door,” Humanities Education Research Association Conference, El Paso, TX,
August 4-9, 2009“Afterthoughts on ‘Afterthoughts on the Rosenbergs’. Leslie Fiedler’s Search for a New Humanism and The Cold War,” The World Congress of
Jewish Studies Conference, Jewish Intellectual and the Cold War, Jerusalem, Israel.
June 3-6, 2009 “Steinbeck, Guthrie, Springsteen.From the Politics of the Frontier to the Politics of Sharing,” Working-Class Studies Association Conference, Pittsburgh, PA.
November 7-9, 2008 “Bruce Zirilli: The Italian Sides of Bruce Springsteen,” American Italian Historical Association Annual Meeting, New Haven, CT.
October 24-25, 2008 “Leslie Fiedler and CesarePavese: Criticism and Literature as Democratic Practices,” “Incontro per la CelebrazionedelCentenariodellaNascita di CesarePavese,” San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.
October 16-19, 2008 “Leslie Fiedler: Paying the Devil His Due,” American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM.
April 4-7, 2007 “Fascist Cars. Futurism and the Politics of Speed.“PAC/ACA Conference, Modernism and Fascism Panel, Boston, MA.
28 February- 3 March 2007 “Fromthe Popular Front and the New York Intellectuals to Identity Politics and Mass Culture.”National Association for Humanities Education (NAHE), San Francisco, CA.
October 7, 2006 “Dagos Rock: Class and Race in the Trope of the Tramp in Italian-American Popular Singers from Lou Prima to Bruce Springsteen,”, “My Hometown: Bruce Springsteen’s America. A Conference.” Rome, Italy.
May 25-28, 2006, “What Color Is the Italian-American Body? Rocky’s Fight Against Whiteness.” AAIT/AAIS Convention, Genova, Italy.
September 13—15, 2005“Born in the U.S.A.? Bruce Zerilli. Springsteen’s Women, Catholicism, and the Plural Identity of America.”, Monmouth University, Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium. Monmouth, NJ.
May 10-11, 2001“The Electric Education of Henry Adams,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Henry Adams and the Need to Know, Boston, MA.
April 4-7, 2000 “Umberto Eco’s Metaphor: Semiotics or Hermeneutics?” American Association of Italian Studies, Umberto Eco: Narrative and Theory, New York, NY.
April 4 - 7, 2000, “The Politics of Technology: Marinetti and Gramsci,” NEMLA, Buffalo, NY.
AWARDS
March 2010Humanities Education Research Association, Certificate of Achievement for Contribution to the Humanities.
GRANTS RECEIVED
Fall 2013Elon University, Fund for Excellence. Project Title” “Building Bridges with American Studies Programs.”
Fall 2012Elon University, Fund for Excellence. Project Title: “Joining the American Studies Community,”
Fall 2011 – Spring 2012Elon University, Associate Provost Research Grant in support of my book project In the Name of the Mother. African Americans, Italian Americans, and Modernity.
Spring 2010Elon University, Fund for Excellence. Project Title: “Ethnicity, Race and Modernism. A Lectures Series.”
Fall 2009Elon University, Fund for Excellence, with Prof. Michael Frontani. Project Title: “Enhancing the American Studies Program.”
EDITORIAL APPOINTMENTS
2009 – present:Consulting Editor, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction (assignments: American and Continental European novelists, especially Toni Morrison,
Philip Roth, and DonDeLillo; edited more than thirty submissions).
ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS
Spring 2011 - present Coordinator, American Studies Program
Elon University
Fall 2011- present Faculty-in-Residence of the Honors Pavilion
Elon University
Fall 2011- presentCommittee Member, National Fellowships Committee
Elon University
May 9, 2012- presentCommittee Member, “Cinelon,” School of Communication Undergraduate Student Contest Cinema Majors
Elon University
Spring 2012 Committee Member of Jensen Suther Honor Thesis “Joyce, Pound, and Beckett: High Modernism and the Intersection at Dante.”
Elon University
Fall 2009 - present Member of the American Studies Program Advisory Board
Elon University
Fall 2009 – presentMember, Board of Directors, H-E-R-A, Humanities Education Research Association (
Fall 2008 - Fall 2011, Interim Director, Italian Studies Minor
Elon University
Fall 2008 - Spring 2010 Faculty Advisor of the Italian Learning Community
Elon University
Fall 2007 Member, Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages (German) and Director of the Language Laboratory Search Committee
Dept. of Foreign Languages, Elon University
Fall 2005 - Spring 2007 Member, new American Studies Program and American Studies Graduate Certificate Committee
Vanderbilt University
LECTURES ORGANIZATION
May 8, 2013Prof. Frank Lentricchia, “On The Accidental Pallbearer,” Elon University, Elon, NC
April 15, 2013Prof. Mary Bush BUcci, “On Sweet Hope,” Elon University, Elon, NC
April 24, 2012.Prof. Frank Lentricchia, “On The Music of the Inferno,” Elon University, Elon, NC.
March 4, 2012.Prof. Dino Cervigni, “The Immigrant as the Other: On Thomas H. Ince’sThe Italian” Elon University, Elon, NC.
December 4, 2011. Prof. Anthony Fragola, Elon University, “Another Corleone,” Elon, NC.
April 26, 2010.Prof. Fred L. Gardaphé, “Jersey Shore: Italian-Americans and the Media,” Elon University, Elon, NC.
April 23, 2010.Prof. Werner Sollors, “Ethnicity and Modernism,” Elon University, Elon, NC.
April 7, 2010.Prof. Thomas J. Ferraro, “La Cosa Nostra,” Elon University, Elon, NC.
December 27-29, 2006 Co-organizer with Geoffrey Green, “Unacknowledged Influence: Leslie Fiedler and the State of Contemporary Theory and Criticism.” MLA Special Session, Speakers: Prof. Alan Wald, Prof. Michael Moon, Prof. Murray Pomerance. Respondent: Prof. Geoffrey Green, Philadelphia, PA.
March 30, 2006 Prof. Janet Zandy, “Poetry and the Triangle Factory Fire of March 25, 1911,” Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
October 7, 1998 Organizer, Prof. Alessandro Portelli, “Who Ain’t A Slave? Frederick Douglass and Primo Levi,” SUNY at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY.
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
English
Italian
French
Latin
Ancient Greek
Spanish (reading only)
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Member of the Modern Language Association
Member of the American Studies Association
Member of the Italian American Studies Association
Member of the Humanities Education Research Association
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