Ol' Blue Eyes, in Focus

By MICHAEL NELSON

Cultural studies considers Sinatra

Scholarly books with "identity" and "culture" in the title have loomed large on academic publishing lists for quite a few years. Scholarly books with "Sinatra" in the title are a more recent phenomenon. Despite his six-decade career as the Voice (the 1940s), the Chairman of the Board (the 50s and 60s), and Ol' Blue Eyes (the 70s through his death, in 1998), academic interest in Sinatra long lagged behind the fascination with, say, Elvis or