Philip R. Yannella

Phil Yannella, Professor of English and American Studies, is currently working on a two volume study for Wiley Blackwell Publishers titled Writing America: Contexts for American Literature. The volumes cover the periods from 1865 to 1945 and from 1945 to the present. They are due to be published in 2010.

Professor Yannella has published on a number of writers and on American Studies topics. He thinks that three of his publications may have some lasting impact. His article on the poet Hart Crane’s urban mythology was reprinted in the Prentice-Hall Twentieth Century Views volume on the poet.  His demography/social mobility study of Concord, Massachusetts, based on census records, and his use of that empirical research as a foundation for understanding Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, broke new ground in its area. His The Other Carl Sandburg (1996) was based on his discovery of several dozen uncollected pieces of Sandburg’s journalism, a whole body of uncollected pseudonymous essays Sandburg published in far left magazines, and records of government surveillance of Sandburg. It provided a radically new view of Sandburg’s politics, poetry, and public persona. The book was judged to be the “most impressive scholarly work of the year” on poetry of 1900 to 1940 by American Literary Scholarship: An Annual Review.

 Professor Yannella has created a number of courses focusing on topics such as right and left wing radicalism, immigration, and workplace issues and trends. For a few years, he offered local history courses in which undergraduate students did archival and architectural research and produced reports for communities. He has also taught a full range of twentieth century American literature courses and basic American Studies courses. For seven years, he co-directed and directed the United States Information Agency/Fulbright Program Summer Institute in American Studies. He has lectured and taught in the People’s Republic of China, Yugoslavia, Japan, and Israel. He was the recipient of his college’s Distinguished Teaching Award and of Temple’s Great Teacher award.    

Professor Yannella has done some administration. Most recently, he was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Temple’s Ambler Campus, a job in which he helped to create the Department of Community and Regional Planning, worked on other “green” initiatives, oversaw campus-wide course offerings, and helped with campus physical planning. He has also served as President of Temple’s faculty union. In the larger community, he has worked with unions, done community organizing, and for some years was a member of the governing body of Lumberton, New Jersey, with duties including the supervision of police and community planning.