Borders can be concrete parameters, and they can also be metaphorical markers. Either way, the border as a political, economic, cultural, and personal site, one to be policed, extended, breached, opened, celebrated, and/or erased, has long been of interest to those concerned with Italy. The areas of scholarly inquiry are as infinite as the varied Italian and Italianate borders themselves. This interdisciplinary conference builds on recent books, symposia, and conferences investigating similar themes of Italian borderlands. The 2020 Calandra Institute conference proposes a transnational, mobile, and inclusive approach to Italy and “Italians”—including inhabitants of the nation-state, members of the diaspora, and former colonial subjects–as it positions itself at the border in an attempt to elucidate the consequences and possibilities that border studies suggest and to gain a deeper understanding of class, gender, and race. For more information, see the Calandra Calendar.

Interest in and devotion to St. Joseph the Carpenter—the Virgin Mary’s husband and Jesus’s foster-father—has been present among Christians since the earliest centuries of the Common Era. Three academic institutions—Xavier University of Louisiana, Cabrini University, and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College (City University of New York)—have collaborated to organize the symposium “Devotion, Artistry, and the Cult of St. Joseph.” For more information on this event, please click here for the full program contents. NOTA BENE: This symposium will NOT be held at the Calandra Institute. It will take place in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We are currently seeking contributions for an edited volume of the journal Italian American Review (IAR) on any aspect related to monuments, memorials, and Italian migrations. We seek articles that address a wide range of Italian migratory experiences including emigration, immigrations, internal migrations, and colonial subjects. We understand migrations to involve the voluntary or forced movement of peoples, objects, and ideas. We are interested in articles about physical objects that mark migration and/or objects that themselves have migrated and that engage with contemporary discussions of transnationalism, diaspora, and/or colonialism. We are also interested in essays that unpack the social-politics of the people involved in any one monument or marker. Click here to read the entire Call for Papers document, including information on deadlines and rules for submission.

Last night, February 4, 2020, at the Calandra Institute was a presentation of Future: il domani narrato dalle voci di oggi, edited by Igiaba Scego. The evening featured Calandra's dean Anthony Julian Tamburri giving opening comments and serving as moderator; Candice Whitney, who gave a general presentation of the book; Camilla Hawthorne, who spoke on “The Significance of Future and ‘African Italy'”; and Marie Moise and Angelica Pesarini, who gave readings from the work.

This series of webinars will focus on practical suggestions on how to build an effective AP™ course and is designed to introduce new AP™ Italian teachers to the course and to provide experienced teachers with new guidelines and ideas to help students be successful in their AP™ course and exam. Presented by Roberta Pennasilico, Italian Instructor at Naples Middle High School–DODEA. For more information, including webinar dates and times, click here to read the entire explanatory document.