Teaching Professor
2006, PhD, University of Pittsburgh
1996, M.A. Montclair State University
1992, B.A. Montclair State University
Bio
I teach and develop courses in my primary field (20th century American Literature), but also instruct courses in genre fiction, literary criticism and American literature from European colonization to the modern era. Additionally, I teach undergraduate writing as well as advise and teach in the UNC Honors program. I most recently designed “Literature in a Digital Age” (ENGL 137) for the English Department at UNC.
My scholarly research and writing ranges from modern American literatures to other fields, including Italian literature, film studies and critical theory. Scholarly journals (boundary 2, Modern Fiction Studies, American Studies, Reader and Quaderni d’Italianistica) have published my essays and reviews. Individual essays have also appeared in edited volumes, the most recent being my essay on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland in the collection Pynchon’s California from the University of Iowa Press.
My first book, about the American writer Don DeLillo, was published by The University of South Carolina Press in 2014. A second book-length project, a work of Natural History, is currently in progress.
Additionally, I was raised in and around the editorial offices of Il Progresso Italo-Americano, the historic Italian language newspaper of New York City, and honor that memory by maintaining a steady editorial work and occassional publications on the literature and culture of my community, the Istrian Italians, the most recent publication being “The Poetry of Exile: An Interview with Diego Bastianutti” (University of Toronto Press, 2018).
I am also a professional tournament fisherman and a former musician, though I still dream in musical notes.
Publications:
Monograph Understanding Don DeLillo (2014) Edited Volume: Barack Obama’s Literary Legacies: Readings of Dreams from my Father Henry Veggian and Richard Purcell, eds. (2015)
Articles and Reviews
- “Don DeLillo’s Southwest” in The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo. Jesse Kavadlo, ed. Cambridge University Press, 2022. 26-38.
- “Don DeLillo: Biography.” Twentieth Century and American Literature in Context. 288-290.
- “The Poetry of Exile: An Interview with Diego Bastianutti” in Forgotten Italians: Julian-Dalmatain Writers and Artists in Canada. Konrad Eisenbichler, ed. University of Toronto Press, 2018. 207-231.
- “Profane Illuminations: Postmodernism, Realism and the Holytail Marijuana Crop in Pynchon’s Vineland” in Pynchon’s California (2014).
- “Anachronisms of Authority: Authorship and Exchange Value in David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King.” boundary 2: An International Journal of Literature and Culture. 39:2 (Fall 2012): 97-124.
- “Bio-Politics and the Institution of Literature: An Essay on East of Eden, its Critics and its Time.” East of Eden: New and Recent Essays. Michael J. Meyer† and Henry Veggian, eds. New York: Rodopi Editions, 2013. 87-121. Dialogue Series 16.
- “From Philology to Formalism: Edith Rickert, John Matthews Manly, and the Literary/Reformist Beginnings of U.S. Cryptology.” Reader: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 54 (Spring 2006): 67-89.
Awards
- Junior Faculty Development Award, UNC Chapel Hill
- Cultural Studies Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh
- Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh
- Chambers-Anderson Research Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh
- Co-Winner, Film Studies Writing Award, University of Pittsburgh
- Mary Bondon Graduate Award, Montclair State University
Courses Taught:
- ENGL 105
- ENGL 122 Introduction to American Literature
- ENGL 122-H Introduction to American Literature (Honors)
- ENGL 147 Mystery Fiction
- ENGL 381 Cinema & Literature