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The Catholic College of the South
Dr. Joseph Pizza
Meet Dr. Joseph Pizza
OF NOTE:
Given our unique historical situation, my areas of expertise allow me and my students to observe and participate in the growth and diversity of 21st-century writing and literary studies.
KNOWN FOR:
In addition to my work directing the first-year writing program and our creative writing magazine, Agora, I am proud to be known as an advocate for our progressive students and for a more inclusive campus community.
WHEN NOT IN THE CLASSROOM, CAN OFTEN BE FOUND:
Outside of teaching, I can be found reading, writing, and collaborating with the larger North Carolina poetry and artistic communities.
POPULAR QUOTE:
“You can be the music.” – Amiri Baraka
Examples of the classes taught by Dr. Joseph Pizza:
- RH 104 Writing and Rhetoric
- EN 305 Intro to the Major
- EN 350 Transatlantic Modernism,
- EN 400 Contemporary Poetry
- EN 422 African American Literature
- BA Rider University
- MA Ohio University
- MSt Oxford University
- DPhil Oxford University
Books:
- Dissonant Voices: Race, Jazz, and Innovative Poetics in Midcentury America, forthcoming from Iowa UP
Publications:
- “Breathing between the Lines: Diane di Prima and the New American Poetry,” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, forthcoming.
- “‘All Aboard for Natchez, Cairo, and St. Louis’: Minstrelsy and Conversion in Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday,” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 45, no. 4, 2022.
- “Spitting Fire: Black Mountain and the Black Arts Movement in the Poetry of Jane Cortez,” Black Mountain College Studies Journal, vol. 12, 2021.
- “Continental Drift: Charles Olson and The English Intelligencer,” Contemporary Literature vol. 59, no. 3 2019, pp. 277-307.
- “All That Is Lovely in Jazz: The Creeley-Rice Collaboration for Jargon 10,” Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, vol. 9 (2019)
- “Nathaniel Mackey,” Scribner’s American Writers, ed. Jay Parini, vol. 27, 2017
- “Performance, Improvisation, and Seriality in the Poetry of Nathaniel Mackey,” currently under consideration at Callaloo
- “Continental Drift: Charles Olson and the English Intelligencer,” forthcoming in Contemporary Literature
Presentations:
-
2018 “Black Mountain Blues: Charles Olson, Amiri Baraka, and Jazz,” presented at the annual ReVIEWING Black Mountain international conference in Asheville, NC
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2018 “Serial Improvisation in the First-Year Writing Classroom,” given at the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication’s regional convention at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA
- 2017 “Seriality and Improvisation in the Fiction of Nathaniel Mackey” to be presented as part of the “Music and Modern Fiction” panel at the annual South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention in Atlanta, GA in November
- 2017 “Black Mountain and Jazz: Creeley, Olson, and ‘Open Field Poetics,’” given at the annual Reviewing Black Mountain Conference in Asheville, NC
- 2015 “‘Moment’s Notice’: Nathaniel Mackey and Jazz,” presented as part of the Jazz and Modernism Panel at the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Convention in Durham, NC
- Modern and Contemporary Literature
- African American Studies
- Writing and Rhetoric
