2000-2001
Seminar Series in Italian
American Studies
Thursday, September 7, 2000: Maria Laurino, reading from her new book, Were You
Always Italian? Ancestors and Other Icons of Italian-Americana.
Maria Laurino
is a freelance journalist and essayist and was chief speechwriter for former
Mayor Dinkins. Her new book (to be published this summer by Norton) combines
memoir with social and cultural history.
Tuesday, October 3, 2000: Lucio Ruotolo on “In Search of My Italian American Father:
Onorio Ruotolo.”
Dr. Ruotolo, professor emeritus
at Stanford University, is a distinguished scholar of English literature, and
is currently writing a biography of his father, an important artist and
sculptor in the Italian American radical movement. Slides will be shown.
Thursday, November 2, 2000: Paul D’Ambrosio on “Ralph Fasanella’s America.”
Paul
D’Ambrosio is chief curator of the New York State Historical Association in
Cooperstown, NY. He is engaged in a major research project on the life and
work of artist Ralph Fasanella and is preparing a major exhibit on Fasanella
for next year. Slides will be shown.
Wednesday, December 6, 2000: Holly Metz on “‘I Wanted to Do Something Big and I Did’:
The Folk Art Environments of Six Italian Americans.”
Holly Metz is an instructor in
humanities at the New School for Social Research and a writer on cultural and
social issues. She served as co-curator of a traveling exhibit on grassroots
art environments. Slides and video will be shown.
Thursday, February 15, 2001: Anna Lomax Chairetakis on “Portrait of a Country in Song:
The Italian Recordings of Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella, 1953-54.”
Dr.
Chairetakis, an anthropologist and daughter of Alan Lomax, is president of the Association for Cultural
Equity at Hunter College/CUNY, director of the Alan Lomax Archives, and
executive producer of the Alan Lomax Collection on Rounder Records. Recordings will be played.
Thursday, March 15, 2001: Marcella Bencivenni on “Politics and Culture in the
Italian American Community: The Experience of Il Fuoco and La
Follia.”
Marcella
Bencivenni, who is writing her dissertation in the PhD program in History at
the CUNY Graduate School, examines the culturally rich experiences of two
magazines published in New York before World War I by leading radical
intellectuals in the Italian American community.
Thursday, April 19, 2001: Carol Kushner on “Concetta
Scaravaglione, Italian American Sculptor.”
Carol Kushner
is a writer and English professor at Dutchess Community College/SUNY. As a
student she studied sculpture for two years at Vassar College with her great
aunt Concetta Scaravaglione, whose work was featured in the exhibition on
“The Italians of New York.”
Slides will
be shown.
Thursday, May 17, 2001: Peter Vellon on “‘Sempre la Questione di Razza’: Ideas of
Race in the Italian American Press, 1890-1915.”
Peter Vellon, who is writing his dissertation in
the PhD Program in History at the CUNY Graduate School, explores how the
early Italian American press reflected a variety of unexpectedly complex views on racial matters concerning
both African Americans and Italian Americans.
Refreshments are served at 6:00 PM. Lectures begin at 6:30
PM - Calandra Institute, 25 W. 43rd St. (between 5th & 6th
Avenues), Suite 1000, in Manhattan. Call (212) 642-2094 for further
information.
Seating is limited.
[Return to the Academic & Cultural Programs page.]
© 1997-2000
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute. All rights reserved.
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