Before Tom was a wino, he was an academic. Eons ago, after an undergraduate career at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, he completed a PhD in English at Johns Hopkins University. He spent four years as assistant professor of English at Ohio State, then won a postdoctoral fellowship for another year at Hopkins. From there he moved to Stony Brook University (in those days laboring under the less-mellifluous name of the State University of New York at Stony Brook), where over 30-some years he progressed from associate professor to full professor to chair of the English Department to emeritus professor (retired).
In his scholarly days, Tom wrote four academic books . . .
Pope’s Horatian Poems. Ohio State University Press, 1967
Epic to Novel. Ohio State University Press, 1974; paperback edition 1976
Three English Epics: Studies in Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton. University of Nebraska Press, 1979
Commentary on the First Six Books of Virgil’s Aeneid by Bernardus Silvestris: A Translation and Introduction. With E.G. Schreiber. University of Nebraska Press, 1979
. . . and some three dozen articles that were published in scholarly journals and/or read as papers at conferences.
Though his writing has for some time been mainly devoted to wine, he has just finished trimming down his once-700-page academic magnum opus to a human-sized study, The Strangeness of Allegory, which he has published online, free for anyone to read.
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Good morning Tom,
I just read your article titled ” Italian -Americans in New York:
A Bicultural Cuisine “. I love the article and know it is extremely accurate. My father and his two brothers operated a ” Supperette” on Staten Island and my father was the butcher.
Can you tell me any information about Dott. Luigi De Falco ? You thank him in this article. It is my family name as well.
My grandparents arrived in Little Italy around 1920 and lived on Elizabeth Street, in NYC before moving to Staten Island. My father Cornelius De Falco does not remember who Luigi was.
I would love to know if your family knew Luigi and how he contributed to this wonderful article.
Thank you and best regards,
Bernard De Falco
Glad you enjoyed the article. Dott. De Falco was an Italian civil servant, resident for many years in New York. He was originally a resident of Naples, and that is where all his relatives remained, so I doubt he is a relative of yours. De Falco, like Maresca, is a very common name in and around Naples.
Ahhhhh, I (a Stony Brook graduate student in the 1970s) remember you SO well. You and Skip Schreiber were two of the finest teachers I ever had. Delighted to stumble on your wine site. Regards to Skip if you two are still in touch. Best, David Lieberman
Although I love your wine writings, as a fellow Ph.D. (Dramatic Lit.), I am also VERY interested in your y-t-b-p ms. on Allegory! Amazed I never heard about this before…oh well, I guess it doesn’t come up in cocktail chatter. Sounds incredibly interesting to a former academic such as myself. All these new topics–can’t wait to discuss. ~Aileen