Joseph Dorinson
Professor
of History
Education
B.A., M.Phil., Columbia
University
Areas of Expertise
A noted authority in the field of popular culture, Dorinson's research specialties span sports history (in
particular, the Brooklyn Dodgers and African
American sports heros), humor studies,
Russian immigration, Brooklyn and Jewish
history, and World War II movies and music. His television appearances
have included Fox News on Joe DiMaggio; NBC Morning News on Al
Gore's acceptance speech; the WLIW-TV program, "Brooklyn:
The Way It Was;" and New York 1 News. On radio, he has appeared
several times on WNYC-AM's "New York and Company," hosted by Leonard
Lopate. Dorinson
has been quoted in major newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun,
the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, the
Christian Science Monitor and the Newark Star-Ledger
on such topics as ill manners in sports, nostalgia TV, the use
and abuse of cell phones, the crime wave in the National Football
League, and Joe DiMaggio's death. His op-ed piece on Hank Greenberg,
"My Hero, Hank," appeared in the New York Daily News on
January 15, 2000, and op-ed pieces on Jackie Robinson, "Jackie's
a Hero Now-But He Wasn't Always," and Paul Robeson, "Paul Robeson,
All-American," appeared in the New York Daily News in 1997
and 1998, respectively. An authority on Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen
and Mel Brooks, Dorinson's comments
on ethnic humor were syndicated in an article that originally
appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Professor Dorinson has co-edited
two books, Paul Robeson: Essays on his Life and Legacy
(McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002) and Jackie Robinson:
Race, Sports and the American Dream (M.E. Sharpe, 1998) and
has written many articles, including "A Life Worth Living: The
Jackie Robinson Biopic" in The Brooklyn Film: Essays
in the History of Filmmaking (McFarland & Company, Inc.,
2003); "Jack Roosevelt Robinson" in The Scribner Encyclopedia
of American Lives (Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002); "Lenny
Bruce" and "Jerry Lewis" in The Scribner Encyclopedia of America
in the 1960s (Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002); "Baseball's
Ethnic Heroes: Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio" in The
Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 2001
(McFarland, 2001); "Danny Kaye: Brooklyn Tummler," in Jews of Brooklyn (University Press
of New England, 2001); "Paul Robeson (1898-1976): A Centennial
Symposium" (co-edited) in Pennsylvania History (Winter 1999);
"Ethnic Humor: Subversion and Survival" in What's So Funny?
Humor in American Culture; the book, Anyone Here A Sailor?
Popular Entertainment and the Navy (Bright Lights Publications,
1994); "The Educational Alliance:
An Institutional Study in Americanization and Acculturation" in
Immigration and Ethnicity (1992); "Brooklyn:
The Elusive Image" in Is Anyone Here From Brooklyn
(1990); and "Racial and Ethnic Humor" in Humor in America:
Topics and Genres (1988). Recent book reviews have appeared
in Jewish Currents (November-December 2002) and Humor
(2001 and December 2002).
In Spring 2002 Professor Dorinson
presented a five-week lecture series at the Hofstra
Cultural Center on "Italian-Americans: Sports and Society,"
and in October 2001 he presented a lectures series on "Jackie
Robinson on Film" at George Washington University in Washington
D.C. In the past two years Professor Dorinson
has presented papers at the International Humor Conference (University
of Maryland, July 2001), the Seventh Annual History of the Catskills
Conference (Kutscher's Country Club, August 2001), the St. Francis
College Conference on the History and Cultural Significance of
Basketball (November 2001), the Museum of Jewish Heritage (December
2001), the Brooklyn Public Library (January 2002), the SABR Annual
Meeting (February 2002), the Brooklyn Historical Society (May
2002), the Hevesi Library, the 14th
Annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture
(June 2002), and the Garibaldi-Meucci
Museum (October 2002). He has also presented presented papers at Hofstra University's
conferences on Frank Sinatra, Babe Ruth and Bing Crosby.
In addition to coordinating a successful conference marking the
50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's
color barrier, he also coordinated a conference on Paul Robeson
(1998) and on the borough of Brooklyn (1998).
Click here for complete resume.
Web Links
- To access Professor Dorinson's web page, click here.
- To read Professor Dorinson's review of _The Bronx: Lost, Found and
Remembered, 1935-1975_, by Stephen M. Samtur and Martin A. Jackson,
click
here.
- To read Professor Dorinson's review of _American Superrealism: Nathanial West and the Politics of
Representation in the 1930s_, by Jonathan Veitch, click
here.
Contact Information
Office:
H848
Office Hours: Mon./Weds. 1-2 P.M. and Fri. By Appointment
Telephone: (718) 488-1057
Fax:
(718) 488-1086
e-mail:
