Professor in Italian at Princeton since 1976, during which time he has been instrumental in developing and overseeing the Italian undergraduate program. He is also director of the interdepartmental Program in Italian Studies, and serves on the committees for Medieval Studies and Renaissance Studies. His scholarship has been in the early Renaissance, the 18th century, and contemporary literature and theater.
He has held positions in the American Association of Italian Studies, the Medieval Academy of America, and the American Association of Italian Teachers, and serves on several editorial boards including Rivista di letteratura italiana and Gradiva. In 1998 Frassica was the recipient of the Italian-American Hall of Fame award, and in 2001 received an “I migliori” prize from the Pirandello Society of Boston. He acts as the liaison and the undergraduate contact for the Princeton summer program at the Università di Macerata, Italy, where he has also taught courses.
Over the years he has taught as a visiting professor at several other universities in the U.S. and abroad. He teaches courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels, has taught interdisciplinary seminars in conjunction with the music department, and currently teaches a seminar, popular with students, on the literature of Italian gastronomy. In the wider Princeton community Frassica serves as a trustee at the Dorothea van Dyke McLane Association, and as a consultant for the Princeton Public Library.
