Yesterday at the Institute filmmaker Summer Minerva presented her latest film (with co-director Adam Golub), Summer Within, a documentary about the history and tradition of femminielli in Southern Italy. After the screening, Minerva discussed the film with Professor Fred Gardaphè, of Queens College and the Calandra Institute. For more on the film, click here.

On March 20, the Calandra Institute hosted professor and author FK Clementi, who read from her captivating and charming memoir, South of My Dreams. Clementi, born and raised in Rome, came to the US as a young student after having nursed romantic fantasies about New York City. It's safe to say that her trajectory to teaching Holocaust studies at the University of South Carolina was an extremely atypical one for an Italian immigrant: The details are by turns funny, alarming, and downright horrifying. It is a cautionary tale like no other from a newly minted American citizen who has looked at the US from many angles and has a rich and appropriately complex impression of the nation.

On the anniversary of the death of Professor Bob Viscusi, poet, teacher, theorist, friend of the Calandra Institute, we hosted a commemoration of him and his work. The event included readings from the Festschrift put together for him in 2021, This Hope Sustains the Scholar, as well as remembrances from colleagues and friends, some from New York City and others from Italy, joining via ZOOM. Click here to watch the entire event.

The Institute is currently hosting the exhibition Edward E. Boccia: Postwar American Expressionist, curated by Rosa Berland. The show will be on view until March 6, 2025, and the gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm. Free and open to the public. Click here to see the full catalog of the exhibited works.

Last week, Calandra's Dr. Joseph Sciorra delivered a talk at Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò on the topic of labor activist Pietro "Pete" Panto. Sciorra spearheaded a successful effort last year to have Panto's headstone made and installed in St. John's Cemetery on Long Island, where the longshoreman's remains are buried. Click here to watch the entire presentation at Casa Italiana.