English Department Faculty

Books

• The World Is Always Coming to an End:  Pulling Together and Apart in a Chicago Neighborhood (University of Chicago Press, 2019).
• Co-editor, with Michael Ezra, The Bittersweet Science: Fifteen Writers in the Gym, in the Corner, and at Ringside (University of Chicago Press, 2017).
• Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories (University of Chicago Press, 2012).
• Cut Time: An Education at the Fights (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).
• Good With Their Hands: Boxers, Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt (University of California Press, 2002).
• October Cities: The Redevelopment of Urban Literature (University of California Press, 1998).

Recent articles and chapters

• "Out in the Country," New York Times Magazine (February 19, 2023):  34-38.
• "The Worm Ouroboros," New York Times Magazine (January 8, 2023):  16.
• "The Thrill Is Back," Washington Post Magazine (July 24, 2022):  18-27.
• "All the Way," Washington Post Magazine (April 3, 2022):  cover, 10-15.
• "Boxing Lessons," Virginia Quarterly Review 97/4 (Winter 2021/2022):  12-22.
• "Foreword," Wherever I'm At:  An Anthology of Chicago Poetry, ed. Donald G. Evans and Robin Metz (Chicago Literary Hall of Fame/After Hours Press, 2022):  11-14.
• "The Queen's Gamble," Washington Post Magazine (February 7, 2021):  20-26.
• "The Literature of Neighborhood" in The City in American Literature and Culture, ed. Kevin R. McNamara (Cambridge University Press, 2021):  57-69. 
• "Stuart Dybek and the New Chicago's Literature of Neighborhood" in Chicago:  A Literary History, ed. Frederik Kohlert (Cambridge University Press, 2021):  400-413.
• "An Experiment," Post Road 37 (Winter 2020).
• "The Meaning of a Freshman Literature Class," Washington Post Magazine (October 25, 2020):  cover, 18-25.
• "What Joe Biden Could Learn from the Baby-Faced Assassin," Politico (October 22, 2020).
• "The Return of Cheatin' Songs," Washington Post Magazine (July 18, 2020):  18-25.
• "The Boston Movie Boom," The City in American Cinema:  Post-Industrialism, Urban Culture and Gentrification, ed. Johan Andersson and Lawrence Webb (London:  Bloomsbury, 2019):  153-174.
• "The Unexpected Power of Your Old Neighborhood," The New Yorker (May 22, 2019).
• "The View from 71st and Jeffery:  A Chicago Neighborhood Holds a Mirror to a Struggling Middle Class," Fortune (May 30, 2019).
• "A Shrinking Middle Class is Ruining the Character of Our Neighborhoods," New York Times, May 19, 2019.
• “Harry Greb, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, and the Roaring Twenties,” The Cambridge Companion to Boxing, ed. Gerald Early (Cambridge University Press, 2019):  79-89.
• "'I Come in Here So I Don't Have to Hate Her': Midland and the Barroom Weeper," Journal of Popular Music Studies 30.4 (December 2018):  5-10.
• "Otis Rush," New York Times Magazine (December 30, 2018):  20.
• "A Tough Crowd in Doboj," Literary Hub (October 12, 2018).   
• "Weird Tales," Chicago by the Book:  101 Publications That Shaped the City and Its Image (University of Chicago Press, with the Caxton Club, 2018):  100-101.
• "Urban Literature:  A User's Guide," Journal of Urban History 44.4 (July 2018):  797-805.
• "Prefight: The Baddest 49-Year- Old On the Planet" and "Postfight: Your Intelligence Come Up," The Bittersweet Science: Fifteen Writers in the Gym, in the Corner, and at Ringside, ed. Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra (University of Chicago Press, 2017): 1-7, 125-150.
• “Harry Greb, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, and the Roaring Twenties,” Cambridge Companion to Boxing, ed. Gerald Early (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
• "Roy Dotrice," New York Times Magazine (December 25, 2017)
• "Ball Games and War Games," catalogue essay for "PlayTime," an exhibition on games at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (October 17, 2017)
• "LaMotta:  More Than 'Raging,'" New York Times, September 22, 2017: A25
• "Foreword," Jack Vance, Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight (Spatterlight Press, 2016 [1983], forthcoming 2016).
• "Hurtin" (On the Bottle): Margo Price," New York Times Magazine (March 13, 2016): 28-32.
• "Buddy Emmons," New York Times Magazine (December 27, 2015): 56.
• "No Dragons, No Zombies," Washington Post Magazine (August 2, 2015): 8-15.
• "Everything at Once," New York Times Magazine (May 31, 2015): 28-33.
• "The Inevitable Spectacle of Mayweather vs. Pacquiao," New York Times Magazine (May 1, 2015): 
• “Profiling ‘Money,’” Public Culture 27.1 (January 2015): 7-19.
• “Leading With His Head,” New York Times Magazine (November 2, 2014): 22-27.
• “The Landscape of Home,” Our Boston: Writers Celebrate the City They Love, ed. Andrew Blauner (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013): 290-300.
• “No Child Left Untableted,” New York Times Magazine (September 15, 2013): 26-32, 53.
• “With a Rebel Twang,” New York Times Magazine (March 17, 2013):  36-39.
• “Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho,” New York Times Magazine (December 30, 2012):  27.
• “The Cult of Micky Ward in Massachusetts,” For the Home Team:  Essays on Sport, Community, and Identity, ed. Daniel Nathan (University of Illinois Press, Sport and Society series, 2013).
• “The Case Against Kojak Liberalism,” The Wire:  Race, Class, and Genre, ed. Liam Kennedy and Stephen Shapiro (University of Michigan Press, 2012):  113-129.
• "Within Limits: On the Greatness of Magic Slim," Pop When the World Falls Apart, ed. Eric Weisbard (Duke University Press, 2012): 230-239.
• “Hollywood on the Charles,” Boston (January, 2012): 39-43.
• “So Many Fearsome Contemporaries,” New York Times Magazine (December 25, 2011): 28-29.
• “A Darker Shade of Green,” New York Times Magazine (August 15, 2011): 34-38.
• “A Wild Mind Loose in Suburbia,” New York Times Magazine (April 24, 2011): 24-29.
• “True to ‘True Grit,’” New York Times Magazine (December 12, 2010):  11-12.
• “The Professor of Micropopularity,” New York Times Magazine (November 28, 2010): 50-55.
• "Ghosts," in My Town:  Writers on American Cities (U. S. State Department, forthcoming). Excerpted online.
• "The Long Shot," Washington Post Magazine (March 21, 2010): cover, 10-17.
• "Class Warrior," The New Yorker (February 1, 2010):  24-29.
• “The End of American Sporting Life,” A New Literary History of America, ed. Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors (Harvard University Press, 2009):  856-860.
• "Desperately Seeking Deval," Boston (September, 2009):  74-79, 134-142.
• "The Genre Artist," New York Times Magazine (July 19, 2009):  20-25.
• "Crime Story," Washington Post Magazine (July 20, 2008):  cover, 8-15, 22-26.
• "And Now, the Biggest Entertainer in Entertainment," Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine (June 1, 2008):  56-61, 87.
• "Praying for Stones Like This: The Godfather Trilogy," Catholics in the Movies, ed. Colleen McDannell (Oxford University Press, 2007): 227-252.
• "When the Gloves Came Off," Boston (November 2007): 120-123, 134-139
• "Pulp History," Raritan 27.1 (Summer 2007): 11-36.
• "Shannon Briggs Says Nyet," New York Times Magazine (April 15, 2007): 36-39.
• "The Two Jameses," The Believer (April, 2007): 49-54.
• "The Elements of Providence," Washington Post Magazine (September 17, 2006): 24-28, 51-53.
• "The Kingdom and the Power," Boston (August 2006): 69-84.