Anthony Julian Tamburri is Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College/CUNY and Professor of Italian & Italian/American Studies.[1] He has written over eighty journal articles and book chapters, and nine books.
Born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut[1] Tamburri earned degrees from Southern Connecticut State University (BS, Italian & Spanish), Middlebury College (MA, Italian), and the University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., Italian & Spanish). He taught both Italian and Spanish at high-school level, and Italian language and literature at Smith, Middlebury, and Auburn, and Italian and Italian/American studies at Purdue University, before moving to Florida Atlantic University where he served first as Chair of the Department of Languages & Linguistics and then Associate Dean for Research, Graduate, and Interdisciplinary Studies, as well as Director of the Ph.D. in Comparative Studies.
Tamburri received various academic and scholarly awards and grants. While at UC Berkeley, he was awarded a Regents Scholarship and the Italian-American Fellowship. He also received a Certificate of Appreciation for Distinguished Contribution to the National Defense while at Purdue University, where he also received numerous Research Foundation Grants. Southern Connecticut State University named him its Distinguished Alumnus for 2000. In 2006, he received the Association of Italian American Educators Award for Promotion of Italian Language and Culture.
Tamburri is a member of a number of organizations for which he has also held several administrative positions. He was a Delegate for Foreign Languages of the Modern Language Association, a member of its Executive Committee for the Division on Modern Italian Literature, and co-founder, with Fred Gardaphé, of the Discussion Group on Italian/American Literature. He was the newsletter editor for the American Italian Historical Association for eight years, a member of its Executive Council since 1993, and its president from 2003-2007. He was the vice president of the American Association of Teachers of Italian for the biennial 2006-2007 and took over as president for 2008-2009.[2]
In addition to more than eighty journal articles and book chapters, his authored books include:
Among his editorial work, with Paolo A. Giordano and Fred L. Gardaphé, Tamburri is contributing co-editor of the best-selling, historical volume From The Margin: Writings in Italian Americana (1991; 2nd edition, 2000) and co-founder of Bordighera Press, publisher of the semi-annual, Voices in Italian Americana, a literary and cultural review, the annual, Italiana, and two book series, Via Folios and Crossings, as well as The Bordighera Poetry Prize. Other edited volumes include, with Giordano, Beyond the Margin: Readings in Italian Americana (1998); with Anna Camaiti Hostert, Screening Ethnicity: Cinematographic Representations of Italian Americans in the United States (2002), which also appeared in Italy as Scene italoamericane: la rappresentazione degli Italiani d’America (2002).