Professor
English
Interim Department Chair
World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Office
Willard-DiLoreto Hall
W401-29 and D402-07
Monday
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Wednesday
10:45 am - 11:45 am
Thursday
8:30 am - 10:30 am
Or by appointment
Biography
Dr. Gilbert L. Gigliotti has been a professor of English and Latin at Central Connecticut State University since 1992. Before arriving in Connecticut, and while working on his advanced degrees, he taught on the high school level for a decade.
His books on Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, as well as his classes on Randy Newman and the musical Show Boat, belie his more traditional academic interests in early American poets like Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley Peters, the late 18th-century writers The Connecticut Wits, the neo-Latin poetry of colonial and revolutionary America, and the literatures of ancient Greece and Rome.
A finalist for the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002, Dr. Gigliotti has led travel classes to Greece, London, and Spain.
Dr. Gigliotti served as English Department chair from 2002-2009, after being assistant chair from 1997-2002. He has served on a variety of committees across campus, including the Student Union Board of Governors (SUBOG), the New Britain Sister Cities Committee, and as long-time president of the Advisory Board of the Friends of Elihu Burritt Library. He is currently serving as the Interim Chair of the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.
For three decades, he has hosted "Frank, Gil, and Friends," which airs every Tuesday morning on WFCS 107.7 FM and wfcsradio.com, and for almost 20 years he has been the producer and host of "Central Authors," the television show featuring talks about books by members of the Central family (faculty, staff, alumni, and students). Between Spring 2010 and Fall 2018, under the auspices of Alumni Affairs and others, he curated and hosted the film series, "Classic Fridays at Central." He once did a promotional bit for NASCAR on ESPN.
He has been recognized for his contributions to campus life. Along with the "Distinguished Service Award" (2010), "Friend of the Alumni Award" (2019), the "Blue Devil Service Award" (2009), and the "Faculty Advisor of the Year Award" (2001), he most recently was honored with the first-ever "Blue Devil Spirit Award" at the 2023 Winter Commencement.
Check out this 2017 profile in Blue Muse or this 2016 "On the Fly" from Central's ASAP.
Off-campus, Dr. Gigliotti is former president of the Classical Association of Connecticut, serves on the Board of Managers of the New Britain Institute, has emceed several events for the Literacy Volunteers of Central Connecticut, and hosted a monthly film discussion group at the McAuley Senior Living Residence in West Hartford, CT. He is also a sought-after speaker for social groups, libraries, and other civic organizations.
His family is working toward fully funding the Gigliotti Family Scholarship which will aim to recognize graduates of New Britain High School who are actively involved in a recognized student club or organization at Central. Feel free to contribute!
Education
Comparative Literature (Latin, Greek, and English)
The Catholic University of America
1992
Areas of Expertise
American Neo-Latin Poetry
Early American Literature
Greek and Latin Literature
Latin Language
Popular Culture (Great American Songbook, Frank Sinatra, Randy Newman, Ava Gardner, John Wesley Harding/Wesley Stace, Show Boat)
Publications, Research & Presentations
BOOKS
Ava Gardner: Touches of Venus. Washington, DC: Entasis Press, 2010.
Sinatra: But Buddy I’m a Kind of Poem. Washington, DC: Entasis Press, 2008.
A Storied Singer: Frank Sinatra as Literary Conceit. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
CHAPTERS
“’Daring to Try the King’s Patience?’(Futile?) Resistance versus Insatiability in Fabula Neoterica.” Community Without Consent: New Perspectives on the Stamp Act. Edited by Zach Hutchins. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2016. 69-88.
“The Composition of Celebrity: Sinatra as Text in the Liner Notes of Stan Cornyn.” Frank Sinatra and Popular Culture: Essays on an American Icon. Ed. Leonard Mustazza. Westport, CT: Praeger Press, 1998. 69-82.
JURIED SCHOLARLY ARTICLES
“The Vicious Cycle of Abundance and Want: An Edition and Translation of Louis Rou’s‘ A Prospect of Chess-Play and Chess-Players.’” Modern Language Studies. 34 (Fall 2004): 8-15.
“Nail-Gnawing in a New World Landscape: From Allusion to Disillusion in John Beveridge’s Epistolae familiares.” Connecticut Review 18.1 (1996): 89-101.
“’Off a Strange, Uncoasted Strand’: Navigating the Ship of State through Freneau’s ‘Hurricane’.” Classical and Modern Literature: A Quarterly 15 (1995): 357-366.
“The Alexandrian Fracastoro: Structure and Meaning in the Myth of Syphilus.” Renaissance and Reformation 14 (1990): 261-270.
CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS
David Lloyd, The Gospel According to Frank (revised edition). New American Press, 2009.
POETRY
“Hysteron Proteron.” www.classconn.org. 9/17/23.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS (selected)
"“Livin’ ‘neath His Spell: The Fruitful, if Uneasy, Frank Sinatra-Cole Porter Collaboration.” Frank Sinatra International Conference, IULM University, Milan, Italy. September 26-27, 2023.
“’A Heart Too Crowded for the Warrior’: Sinatra, Dryden, and the Borders of Enmity in None But the Brave (勇者のみ).” Border Visions: Borderlands in Film and Literature Conference, sponsored by the Literature/Film Association, New Britain, CT, October 12-14, 2011.
“Elvis Bows; Bing Just Nods: High and Low Culture in Fancy Meeting You Here.” Bing! The Crosby and American Culture Conference. Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY. Nov. 2002.
“Never Negotiate with a River.” “’A Curriculum, a Vigor, a Local Abstraction’: The Literary Crosscurrents of the Connecticut River Valley – A Symposium.” The Old State House, Hartford, CT, 1 April 2001.
“’There’ll be no Future without Him’: The Voice versus the Emerging Monster in Playing Sinatra.” Frank Sinatra: The Man, The Music, The Legend. Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, 12-14 November 1998.
“Reconfiguring the Stars: Translation and Neo-Latin Emulation in Philip Freneau’s ‘Pyramid of the Fifteen American States’.” Annual Conference of the Northeast Modern Language Association. Baltimore, MD. 18 April 1998.
“From Tearful Nineveh to a ‘Grateful America’: Ancient Eloquence and Freedom of the Press in De morte luctuosa…Andreae Hamiltonis.” American Philological Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL, 28 December 1997.
“Left Standing at Watertown Station: The Chairman of the Board in the Time of Woodstock.” Northeast Popular Culture Association Conference. Quinnipiac College. Hamden, CT, November 1996.
“The Composition of Celebrity: Sinatra as Text in the Liner Notes of Stan Cornyn.” Popular Culture Association Annual Conference. Las Vegas, NV, March 1996.
“’Even Her Husband Praises Her’: Public Verses (Versus) Private Voice in Andrew Croswell’s Carmina lugubria.” American Philological Association Annual Conference. Atlanta, GA, December 1994.
“Towards a New World Senatus Doctorum: The Liminary Verse of the Magnalia Christi Americana.” Ninth International Congress of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies. Bari, Italy, August 1994.
“At Play with Pope in the ‘Fields of Fight’: Phillis Wheatley and Überbeitung.” MELUS: The Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States Annual Conference. University of California at Berkeley. Berkeley, CA, April 1993.
“Milton’s Horace: Ad patrem as a Study of Literary Parentage.” Classical Association of the Atlantic States Annual Conference. Georgetown University. Washington, DC, April 1991.
“To Invoke a Darker Muse: A Pair of New World Neo-Latin Poems by Men of Color.” Inaugural Meeting of the Society for the Classical Tradition. Boston University. Boston, MA, March 1991.
Awards & Grants
"Blue Devil Spirit Award 2023," Central Winter Commencement, 16 December 2023.
“Friend of the Alumni Award 2019,” Central Alumni Association, 6 June 2019.
“Distinguished Service Award,” Central Connecticut State University, 25 August 2010.
“The Blue Devil Service Award,” Central Student Activities/Leadership Development, 13 April 2009.
"Faculty Advisor of the Year 2000-2001." SA/LD, Central, 19 April 2001.
Connecticut State University System-Wide Motto Contest. Winning motto: “CSU: Developing a State of Minds,” Summer 1998
Sabbatical Leaves: Spring 2016, Spring 2007, Fall 1999.
Finalist, Teaching Excellence Award, 2002. Central Connecticut State University. (Honor Roll: 2021, 2017, 2013, 1996).
Memberships & Affiliations
American Association of Neo-Latin Studies
Classical Association of Connecticut
Classical Association of New England
Friends of Elihu Burritt Library
The New Britain Institute
New Britain Sister Cities Committee
Society of Early Americanists
Courses Taught
FALL 2024
ENG 348 Early American Drama
LAT 111 Elementary Latin I
WL 125 Intermediate Latin I
WL 496 Independent Study: Spain before and with the Romans
SPRING 2025
ENG 217 Study Abroad: Ava Gardner: An Expat in Spain
LAT 112 Elementary Latin II
WL 126 Intermediate Latin II
OTHER COURSES OFFERED (more or less regularly)
ENG 340 Early American Literature
ENG 363 Greek Literature in Translation
ENG 364 Latin Literature in Translation