Jim Coleman’s book was honored by the American Association of Teachers of Italian

Jim Coleman, assistant professor of Italian at the University of Pittsburgh, earned the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) First Book Prize.

Of Coleman’s book, “A Sudden Frenzy” (University of Toronto Press), the AATI prize committee wrote that it “is a superbly written account about the theory and practice of the fundamental yet elusive tradition of improvised poetry recitation in Renaissance Italy."

At Pitt, Coleman studies Italian literature and culture between the 14th and 18th centuries, and his new book project, “Reading Archipelagos,” involves work across three department research networks in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences: nation and transnation, environment, and film and media.

Coleman has conducted research in Florence, Italy, through a 2008-09 Fulbright scholarship and also received the Villa I Tatti Fellowship from Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in 2019. He earned his bachelor’s degree and PhD in Italian literature from Yale University and his MA in Italian literature from Middlebury College in Vermont.