Published: December 2010
Carlo Rotella is a professor of English and director of the American Studies Program at Boston College. He’s also the author of three works of nonfiction—October Cities: The Redevelopment of Urban Literature (1998), Good With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt (2002), and Cut Time: An Education at the Fights (2003)—and of essays and reporting in the New Yorker, Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and numerous other publications. Rising early to write between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., Rotella is a regular columnist for the Boston Globe and a frequent contributor of essays to WGBH public radio. He joined the English department in 2000 and says of his work as a writer, teacher, and administrator, “You can think about it in either of two ways—everything is the antidote to everything else, or they’re all aspects of one project, which is to think analytically about culture.”
Below is a sampling of Rotella’s journalism from the past year.
- “On the Basketball Court with Arne Duncan,” the New Yorker, January 26, 2010
An online supplement to Rotella’s profile of the Secretary of Education, in which the author plays in a pickup game with Arne Duncan.
- “The Professor of Micropopularity,” New York Times Magazine, November 26, 2010
A profile of James Schmaus, CEO of Focus Features, producer of such films as Milk, The Pianist, and Lost in Translation.
- “The Long Shot: NBA hopefuls try to prove themselves in the D-League,” Washington Post Magazine, March 21, 2010
A look at life in the NBA’s minor league system.
- “The Arias of ‘Eddie Coyle’,” Boston Globe, May 3, 2010
An appreciation of the iconic crime novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins (coincidentally, Boston College ’61, JD’67).
- A collection of Rotella’s recent dispatches for WGBH
