American academic and writer (1943–2019)
Philip George Furia (November 15, 1943 – April 3, 2019) was an American author and
English literature professor. His books focus on the lyricists of the
Tin Pan Alley era.
Biography
Furia was born in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Ethel Rose
Szilagyi Furia and Philip Andrew Furia. He has a younger brother, Mark Daniel Furia. He grew up in
West Mifflin, a suburb of Pittsburgh, next to
Kennywood Park, an amusement park where he worked as a
barker during his high school years.
In 1961, Furia graduated from
Duquesne High School in Pittsburgh and attended
Oberlin College in
Ohio, majoring in
English. Following his graduation with honors in English from Oberlin in 1965, Furia attended the
University of Chicago, receiving his
Master of Arts in English and creative writing in 1966. Furia then attended the
University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received his
Master of Fine Arts in 1970. Hunkies Eat Their Young was the title of his
MFA thesis. He received his
PhD from the University of Iowa in 1970.
Upon receiving his degree, Furia started teaching at the
University of Minnesota's
Department of
English in 1970. During Furia's time at the University of Minnesota, he was a visiting lecturer at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England (1976-1977), and for the academic year 1982–1983, a Fulbright Professor at the University of Graz, Austria. In 1996, Furia left the University of Minnesota, where he had been department chair, associate chair, director of
Undergraduate Studies, and associate dean for faculty of the
College of
Liberal Arts. In 1994, Furia served as the
interim
dean for the College of Arts and Sciences for
Metropolitan State University in
Saint Paul, Minnesota during the 1994–1995 academic year.
Furia became chair of the Department of
English at the
University of North Carolina Wilmington. During his
tenure there, Furia was also
director of the
Film Studies Program, chair of the Department of
Creative Writing, and interim Chair of the Department of Theatre. He was instrumental in the creation of both the creative writing department and the film studies program. He was a professor in the Department of Creative Writing.
[1] Furia also presented a weeknight segment on
WHQR's The Great American Songbook with Philip Furia.
Along with Wendy and Gerald Fingerhut, Nancy King, Paul Albritton, David Williams, Jeannette Callison, Melvin Ezzel, Lynn O'Connell, Jack Sauer, and Robert Sherman, Furia was one of the founding members of the board of directors for Opera Wilmington.
Furia died on April 3, 2019 in Wilmington, NC.
[2]
Honors and awards
Undergraduate
- Knight Scholarship, 1961–1965, Oberlin College
Graduate
- Ford Foundation Fellowship, 1965–1966, University of Chicago
- Teaching-Research Fellowship, 1967–1969, University of Iowa
- Sloan Doctoral Fellowship, 1969–1970, University of Iowa
Professional
- Fulbright Professorship, 1982–1983, University of Graz, Austria
- Distinguished Teaching Award, 1989, University of Minnesota, College of Continuing Education and Extension
- Scholar of the college, 1991–1994, University of Minnesota
- Cahill Grant, 1997–1998, University of North Carolina Wilmington
- Presented with Key to the City of Savannah by Mayor Floyd Adams for writing Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer, 2003
- Awarded annual cash prize for editing American Lyricists, 1920-1960, which was voted the best volume in the series for 2002
Works
Articles, Chapters, and Other Publications:
- "Nuances of a Theme by Milton: Wallace Stevens' 'Sunday Morning,'"
American Literature, 46 (1974), 83–87.
- "Hart Crane's 'At Melville's Tombe,"
The Explicator, 33 (1975), Item 73.
- "'IS, the whited monster': Lowell's Quaker Graveyard Revisited,"
Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 17 (1976), 837–54.
- "Bloomburied Stevens" (rev. art.) Centrum 1 (1977), 58–63.
- "Stevens' Fusky Alphabet,"
PMLA 93 (1978), 66–77. [Co-author, Martin Roth]
- "Howells' 'Editha': The Feminine View," American Literary Realism, 12 (1979), 278–83.
- "Paterson's Progress,"
boundary 2, 9 (1981), 31–51.
- "Pound and Blake on Hell," Paideuma: A Journal of Ezra Pound Scholarship, 10 (1981), 599–601.
- "Halving Man/hattan: Lorenz Hart, Popular Song, and Modernist Poetry," William Carlos Williams Review, 15 (1989), 30–36.
- "Jazzing the Word/Wording the Jazz," Twin Cities Jazz Notes, 13:1 (May 1991), 1–3.
- "Irving Berlin: Troubadour of Tin Pan Alley," Inventing Times Square: Culture and Commerce in New York, ed. William Taylor (New York: The
Russell Sage Foundation, 1991), 191–211.
- "The Lorenz Hart Centenary,"
Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1995 (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1996), 241–260. Author of main essay and editor of centenary tributes by
Sheldon Harnick and other lyricists and scholars.
- "'S Wonderful: Concord Jazz Salutes Ira Gershwin," CD Linder Notes for
Mel Torme,
Rosemary Clooney, and other jazz vocalists performing songs by
Ira Gershwin (San Francisco:
Concord Jazz, Inc., 1997).
- "The Ira Gershwin Centenary," '
Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1996 (Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1997), 144-171. Author of main essay and editor of tributes by
Sheldon Harnick and other lyricists and scholars.
- "Love is Good for Anything that Ailes You: Songs of the 1930s," CD Liner Notes for Banu Gibson (New Orleans: Jazz Sessions, 1998).
- "Something to Sing About: A Centenary Celebration of America's Great Lyricists," The American Scholar (Summer 1997), 379-394.
- "Sinatra on Broadway," Frank Sinatra and Popular Culture: Essays on an American Icon, ed. Leonard Mustazza (London: Praeger, 1998).
- Frank Sinatra: Musician, Actor, & Quintessential Ethnic," symposium edited for Italian Americana, XIX (Winter 2001), 5-22, including his own essay "Sinatra and the Great American Song Book," 10-13.
- The Sounds of Silence: Songs in Hollywood Films since the 1960s," Style 36:1 (Spring 2002, 19-35. [co-author, Todd Berliner]
Selected National Television, Radio, and Other Interviews:
- “The Poets of Tin Pan Alley,”
Larry King Live!1990;
All Things Considered, 1990; The
Studs Terkel Show,
WFMT, Chicago,1991; return appearance on
Larry King Live in conjunction with paperback publication of The Poets of Tin Pan Alley, 1993; interview rebroadcast on The Best of
Larry King Live!
- “
Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist,” television interview:
Turner Entertainment Report, 1996; radio interviews:
WBAL Philadelphia; KBEW New York;
BBC London; BBC Australia;
ABC Australia;
WBEX Los Angeles, 1996
- “The Women of Tin Pan Alley,”
PBS Special: “Yours for a Song,”1999
- “
Harry Warren and Hollywood Songwriters,” two-part series,
Fresh Air with
Terry Gross, 1999
-
Irving Berlin: An American Song, Arts & Entertainment Biography, 1999
- “
Dorothy Fields,”
Fresh Air Radio with
Terry Gross, 1999
-
PBS Broadway: The Musical (Emmy-Award winning six-part series)
-
Irving Berlin’s America,” two-part program,
Ben Wattenberg’s Think Tank,
WNET, New York, 2002
- The Best Things in Life, four-part series on songwriters
Buddy DeSylva,
Brown &
Henderson,
BBC-2, 2002
- Soul Music, four-part series on
Johnny Mercer,
BBC-2, 2002
- Interviewed for
U.S. News & World Report article on
Irving Berlin and ragtime in special double-issue, America’s Music: From Yankee Doodle to Hip-Hop, 2006
- Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer,
Fresh Air with
Terry Gross, 2003.
- Americas Songs,
The Bob Edwards Show, 2006; interview, reprised as Best of Bob Edwards along with interviews with
John Updike and
Calvin Trillin
- I Love to Rhyme: The lyrics of
Ira Gershwin, six-part series on
KALW San Francisco, 2011-2014
- The Songs of Hollywood,
Fresh Air with
Terry Gross, 2011
- Broadway Musicals : A Jewish Legacy,
PBS Special. 2013
- “Johnny Mercer and ‘Hooray for Hollywood,’”
NPR Morning Edition with
Susan Stamberg, 2013
- “East Village Poet: Ira Gershwin,” Morning Calm: Korean Air In-flight Magazine (August, 2013)
- “The Poets of Tin Pan Alley,” The Vintage Bandstand Blogspot,” three-part interview (January, 2013)
References
External links
- LIVE LOCAL, LIVE SMALL: Remembering the impact of UNCW’s Dr. Phil Furia,
[1], published in encore, April 23, 2019
- Tony L. Hill,
Philip Furia: An Appreciation, published on Powerline blog, April 7, 2019
-
Irving Berlin's America Part 1 (12/28/2006) and
Part 2 (1/4/2007); Robert Kimball and Linda Emmet (second of
Berlin's three daughters), co-editors of The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin, and Furia; host
Ben Wattenberg.
PBS
Think Tank, audio and transcript.
-
978-0-415-99052-3 America's Songs at Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.
-
"When Hollywood Had A Song In Its Heart", transcript, Philip Furia interview with
Terry Gross, Fresh Air, July 20, 2010. Discussing The Songs of Hollywood; mentions include
Claire Trevor singing "
Moanin' Low" in
Key Largo;
Donald O'Connor
lip syncing in
Singin' in the Rain "where ... he's bouncing all over the room".
Interview audio (26 min.).
-
Interview with WritersNewsWeekly.com
-
Philip Furia at
IMDb
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