Seminar Series in Italian American Studies

Thursday, September 13, 2001: Jason Pine on “The Aesthetics of Economic Performance: Music-Making and the Neapolitan Neomelodici.”

Jason Pine is a Ph.D candidate in Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. His interest lies in the relationships among aesthetics, the shadow economy, popular music and the genre of melodrama in Naples. Recordings will be played and videos will be shown.

Thursday, October 11, 2001: Augusto Ferraiuolo on “Negotiating Identity in Boston’s North End through Religious Symbols and Pageantry”

From early June to mid-September, Boston’s North End is transformed into a living theater of religious spectacle. Professor of Cultural Anthropology at la Università di Cassino, Augusto Ferraiuolo examines the ensemble of religious for their social function, symbolic meanings, and collective morphology.

Thursday, November 8, 2001: Mary Jo Bona on “The Allurement of Influence: Italian American Women's Maternal Literary Ancestry”

Mary Jo Bona, Associate Professor of Italian American Studies at SUNY--Stony Brook, will examine second-wave Italian American feminism among women writers, especially in their honoring in form and content the writers who proceeded them. Writers discussed will include Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Rose Romano, Louise De Salvo, and Mary Cappello, among others.

Thursday, December 6, 2001: David DeGregorio on “Minerva e lo scimmione?: German Cultural Influence in Italy from Unification to War I, 1861-1915”

David De Gregorio, Esq., a student in CUNY Graduate’s history program, explores German cultural influence in Italy in the decades following Italian unification and the revolt against those influences prior to and following Italy's entry into World War I.

Thursday, February 7, 2002: Peter Carravetta on “‘They are just like us!’: Alterity and Politics in the National Press in Post-Unification Italy”

Prof. Peter Carravetta of Italian and Comparative Literature at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center looks at the perception and characterization of the Other(s) in several Italian newspapers and periodicals from the years 1870-1900. He will explore the press’s "discovery" of the South and problematic social conditions, its search for solutions through the framing of “la Questione Meridionale,” and discussions of immigration and colonial expansion in Africa.

Thursday, March 7, 2002: Stefano Vaccara on “Al servizio di due padroni:Generoso Pope’s Il Progresso, Mussolini, Roosevelt, and the Coming of World War II”

Stefano Vaccara is a Ph.D. student in History at the Graduate Center Cuny and an editor and columnist at America Oggi. His research is on the Italian language daily newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano and the way it shaped Italian American opinion about Fascism.

Thursday, April 11, 2002: Ana Cara on “Caricature and Surrealism: The Portrayal of Italians in Argentinean Tango Lyrics”

Folklorist Ana Cara is the Chair of Hispanic Studies at Oberlin College and has published a book on Jorge Luis Borges' milonga poems. Prof. Cara will examine the representation of Italians in Argentinean tango lyrics. Recordings will be played.

Thursday, May 2, 2002: Joseph J. Inguanti on “A Matter of Life and Death: Italian American Domestic and Cemetery Landscaping Practices”

Joseph J. Inguanti is an Associate Professor of Art History at Southern Connecticut State University. His research interests include landscape design, Italian American material culture, and the interrelationships between domestic and funerary landscapes. He is currently working on a book that explores the landscaping traditions of various ethnic groups in America. Slides will be shown.

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Refreshments are served at 6:00 PM. Lectures begin at 6:30 PM - Calandra Institute, 25 W. 43rd St. (between 5th & 6th Avenues), 18^th floor, in Manhattan. Call (212) 642-2042 for further information. Seating is limited.