Jimmy Fazzino

I am a lecturer in the Honors College and the Department of English at the University of Maine. I earned my Ph.D. in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and previously taught there before arriving at UMaine. My teaching and research focus on twentieth-century American literature, modernism and the avant-garde, the Beat Generation, and the work of Bob Dylan. I have contributed essays to several edited volumes on Beat Generation writing, and I am the author of World Beats: Beat Generation Writing and the Worlding of U.S. Literature (Dartmouth, 2016). In the Honors College, I have taught courses in the Civilizations sequence, and this year I will launch two new seminars on road narratives in classical and modern literature.

“Manifestos and Provocations,” William Burroughs in Context, ed. Oliver Harris, Davis Schneiderman, and Alex Wermer-Colan (Cambridge, forthcoming)

“Teaching the Road Novel with Jack Kerouac,” The Beats: A Teaching Companion, ed. Nancy M. Grace (Clemson, 2021)

“Inside the Whale: William Burroughs and the World,” b2o: an online journal (December 2017)

“Amiri Baraka’s Revolutionary Theatre: Black Power Politics, Avant-Garde Poetics,” Beat Drama: Playwrights and Performances of the “Howl” Generation, ed. Deborah Geis (Bloomsbury, 2016)

“The Beat Manifesto: Avant-Garde Poetics and the Worlded Circuits of African American Beat Surrealism,” The Transnational Beat Generation, ed. Nancy M. Grace and Jennie Skerl (Palgrave, 2012)

“A Trap Well-Enough Woven of Words: The Many Worlds of Brion Gysin’s The Process,” Journal of Beat Studies 1 (2012)

Why I Teach in Honors:

First and foremost, I teach in Honors because of the students. They bring an incredible level of curiosity, creativity, and commitment to their work, and they constantly inspire me to become a better, more thoughtful teacher. I also value the interdisciplinary curriculum, which spans continents and centuries and encourages deep exploration and flexibility in the classroom. Teaching in Honors allows me to design courses that cross boundaries—historical, cultural, and intellectual—and to ask big questions alongside engaged learners. Just as important is the collaborative spirit of the program itself. I feel lucky to work with a dedicated group of colleagues from across the university who bring diverse perspectives and a shared passion for teaching.