Biography
I am an author, journalist and critic living in Long Island City (Queens, NYC). I have contributed features, reviews, essays, and opinion pieces to a wide range of print and digital publications including The Nation, Film Comment, Newsday, Gay City News, The Advocate, Cineaste, In These Times, The Italian American Review and Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, and online publications PopMatters, The New York Journal of Books, Rootsworld, and La Voce di New York.
My well-reviewed non-fiction book An Offer We Can’t Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America explores some of my longstanding preoccupations as a writer: cultural mythologies and their social impact; ethnic identity and stereotypes; popular culture, especially film, and how such social categories as race, class, sexuality and gender interact in American society. I also am a contributing author to many other books, including The Routledge History of the Italian Americans, The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Presses), Mafia Movies (University of Toronto), Our Naked Lives (Bordighera Press).
I have also appeared in several documentary films and I present my academic papers at conferences in the US and abroad.
Here's a select list of my work over the past few decades:
AUTHOR
An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America, ( 2007), Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Examination of the "Mafia myth" in popular culture, and how pop culture representations reflect (or don't) the reality of organized crime.
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
Rethinking The Godfather Fifty Years Later (2024). Casa Lago Press. Contributed an essay on The Godfather's politics.
The Routledge History of the Italian Americans (2018), Routledge. Contributed essay to this major volume of historical scholarship
Our Naked Lives (2013), Bordighera Press. Contributed essay to collection of writings by Italian American authors
The Essential Sopranos Reader (2011), University of Kentucky Press. Contributed essay to collection of critical commentary on the HBO series, "The Sopranos"
Mafia Movies: A Reader (2011), University of Toronto Press. Contributed two essays to anthology of film criticism focusing on American and European crime film genres
Mediated Ethnicity (2011), University of the City of New York. Contributed an essay on the treatment of ethnicity, race and sexuality in US cinema
Is the Mafia Still a Force in America? (2006), Greenhaven Press. Contributed an essay to collection of commentary on organized crime in America
American Voices: Culture and Community (2006), McGraw Hill. Contributed an essay to this textbook
Writing in a Changing World: Writer's Guide with Handbook (2003), Longman UK. Contributed an essay to this textbook
Witness to Revolution: The Advocate reports on gay and lesbian politics, 1967-1999 (2000), Alyson Press. Contributed two articles, one of which originally appeared as an Advocate cover story
Reggae, Rastafarians, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub (2000), Schirmer Ltd. Contributed an essay on reggae music
JOURNALISM
The Nation
America's oldest journal of politics and opinion
PopMatters
Leading online journal of pop culture
La Voce di New York
Online newspaper, Italian/English
Gay City News
Reporting and feature articles for leading LGBT print and online newspaper
I-Italy
Website and print magazine
Rootsworld
Reviews, essays and interviews about music from Africa, Europe, and the Americas
New York Journal of Books
Book reviews and critical essays
Italian American Review
Peer-reviewed academic journal published by Queens College/City University of New York
Voices in Italian Americana (VIA)
Peer-reviewed academic journal
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
"What Happens When Music Travels? Transcultural Transfers in Italian Song," Translating Italian Mobilities, April 2024, City University of New York
"Giacomo Sferlazzo's Lampedusa: Music, Art, and Political Commitment from the 'Middle of the Mediterranean,'" Eco Italie: Material Landscapes and Environmental Imaginaries, April 2022, City University of New York.
"Salento Visions: Tradition and Modernity in the Music Videos of Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino," 2019, City University of New York
The Scandalous Bodies of Guglielmo Pluschow: Constructing a Homoerotic Mediterranean through Photography," 2018, City University of New York
"La Notte della Taranta: Musicking as a Social Act and Metaphor for Social Relationships," 2017; City University of New York
"Social Media and Sicily's Anti-Mafia Movement," 2014; City University of New York
"Cosimo Matassa: 'We Were Just Neighbors," 2013, Italian American Studies Association, New Orleans
"Roy Paci: You Must Protect the Dialects," 2013, City University of New York
"Fuori in Italia: A Gay Grandson Encounters La Madrepatria," 2012, City University of New York
"Whose Family Values? The Cinema of Ferzan Ozpetek," 2011, City University of New York
"21st Century W.O.P.s," 2008, Experience Music Project Annual Conference, Seattle
"Race, Sex and Ethnicity in Italian American Cinema," 2007, 43rd International Festival of New Film and Video, Pesaro, Italy
"A 'Finook' in the Crew: Vito Spatafore, The Sopranos, and the Queering of the Mafia Genre," 2007, American Italian Historical Association, Denver, CO
DOCUMENTARIES
I have appeared on camera in the following documentary films:
The Italian Americans, Public Broadcasting System, 2015
The Godfather Legacy, History Channel, 2012
Beyond Wiseguys, Public Broadcasting System, 2008