"There are defining moments in the life of a nation when a single individual can shape events for generations to come. For America, the spring of 1947 was such a moment, and Jackie Robinson was the man who made the difference."
Please join us for a special lecture and conversation with Joe Dorinson '58CC on "Jackie Robinson’s Noble Experiment at 70".
Joe Dorinson Bio:
A noted authority in the field of popular culture, Dorinson's research specialties span sports history (in particular, the Brooklyn Dodgers and African American sports heros), humor studies, Russian immigration, Brooklyn and Jewish history, and World War II movies and music. His television appearances have included Fox News on Joe DiMaggio; NBC Morning News on Al Gore's acceptance speech; the WLIW-TV program, "Brooklyn: The Way It Was;" and New York 1 News. On radio, he has appeared several times on WNYC-AM's "New York and Company," hosted by Leonard Lopate. Dorinson has been quoted in major newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, the Christian Science Monitor and the Newark Star-Ledger on such topics as ill manners in sports, nostalgia TV, the use and abuse of cell phones, the crime wave in the National Football League, and Joe DiMaggio's death. His op-ed piece on Hank Greenberg, "My Hero, Hank," appeared in the New York Daily News on January 15, 2000, and op-ed pieces on Jackie Robinson, "Jackie's a Hero Now-But He Wasn't Always," and Paul Robeson, "Paul Robeson, All-American," appeared in the New York Daily News in 1997 and 1998, respectively. An authority on Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen and Mel Brooks, Dorinson'scomments on ethnic humor were syndicated in an article that originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Professor Dorinson has co-edited two books, Paul Robeson: Essays on his Life and Legacy (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002) and Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports and the American Dream (M.E. Sharpe, 1998) and has written many articles, including "A Life Worth Living: The Jackie Robinson Biopic" in The Brooklyn Film: Essays in the History of Filmmaking (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2003); "Jack Roosevelt Robinson" in The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002); "Lenny Bruce" and "Jerry Lewis" in The Scribner Encyclopedia of America in the 1960s (Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002); "Baseball's Ethnic Heroes: Hank Greenberg and JoeDiMaggio" in The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture 2001 (McFarland, 2001); "Danny Kaye: Brooklyn Tummler," in Jews of Brooklyn (University Press of New England, 2001); "Paul Robeson (1898-1976): A Centennial Symposium" (co-edited) in Pennsylvania History (Winter 1999); "Ethnic Humor: Subversion and Survival" in What's So Funny? Humor in American Culture; the book, Anyone Here A Sailor? Popular Entertainment and the Navy (Bright Lights Publications, 1994); "The Educational Alliance: An Institutional Study in Americanization and Acculturation" in Immigration and Ethnicity (1992); "Brooklyn: The Elusive Image" in Is Anyone Here From Brooklyn (1990); and "Racial and Ethnic Humor" in Humor in America: Topics and Genres (1988). Recent book reviews have appeared in Jewish Currents (November-December 2002) and Humor(2001 and December 2002).
In Spring 2002 Professor Dorinson presented a five-week lecture series at the Hofstra Cultural Center on "Italian-Americans: Sports and Society," and in October 2001 he presented a lectures series on "Jackie Robinson on Film" at George Washington University in Washington D.C. In the past two years Professor Dorinson has presented papers at the International Humor Conference (University of Maryland, July 2001), the Seventh Annual History of the Catskills Conference (Kutscher's Country Club, August 2001), the St. Francis College Conference on the History and Cultural Significance of Basketball (November 2001), the Museum of Jewish Heritage (December 2001), the Brooklyn Public Library (January 2002), the SABR Annual Meeting (February 2002), the Brooklyn Historical Society (May 2002), the Hevesi Library, the 14th Annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture (June 2002), and the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum (October 2002). He has also presented presented papers at Hofstra University's conferences on Frank Sinatra, Babe Ruth and Bing Crosby.
In addition to coordinating a successful conference marking the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier, he also coordinated a conference on Paul Robeson (1998) and on the borough of Brooklyn (1998).
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