As a 13-year-old, Carlo Rotella would hang out at the Checkerboard Lounge, then a premier blues club in Chicago. Five years later, he was just an "earnest but dreamy sort of guy from Chicago."
Little did he know that, at the age of 40, he would be teaching and writing about the topics that piqued his interest -- blues, boxing and cities.
In a lecture of that title, Rotella of Boston College conducted the second installment of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships' "Faculty Talk about Research" series.
He is considered one of the best writers on boxing -- although he does not box himself.
Rotella told his life story for an audience of around 40 people.
"I'm interested in using stories to make an argument, using stories analytically, and [today] I used myself as a character," said Rotella, who is an English professor and director of Boston College's American studies program.
The crowd seemed to enjoy his storytelling technique.
"I really liked hearing his writing," College senior Paige Fitzgerald said, commenting on the excerpts Rotella read from his books Good With Their Hands and Cut Time.
"I thought he was really cool. I want to read [more] of his work," added Fitzgerald, who is in the process of applying for the Fulbright Program.
College sophomore Joe Gallo attended the talk to hear about Rotella's academic work.
"It's not that I'm particularly interested in boxing or blues [but rather] the social and economic changes in the city," said Gallo, a Benjamin Franklin Scholar who said he is entertaining the idea of becoming a professor.
"I thought a lot of his ideas about compromises you have to make between being a pure academic and intellectual, and someone who has to express his ideas in a way a wider audience will accept," he added.
Rotella described how he literally follows railroad tracks to empty buildings where boxers train, and how he figuratively traces their stories back to place them in the context of the city's history.
"You begin to think about the world around you," Rotella said, adding that he remembers information best if he can relate it to a specific place.
He also explained his progress in making a craft and a living out of his interests.
"I'm trying to find new ways to present research. The thing I'm doing is endless -- there's always more," he said.
Rotella is currently a reporter for The Washington Post and has contributed to the The Philadelphia Inquirer.
