John Gennari, Associate Professor of English and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of Vermont, explores the cultural products of the encounters, now destructive and now creative, between African America and Italian America, in conversation with Francesca Bellei, PhD student in Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

Journeying through two highly sensuous communities, Flavour and Soul: Italian America at its African American Edge is a book that packs a punch: not only because of what it can teach us about the nature of mainstream American culture, but also because of how it teaches us – with passion and guts.