Over the weekend, Dr. Joseph Sciorra presented his book Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City at the I Am Books bookshop in Boston.

The symposium begins at 5:30 pm. You can see the recorded event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3LilR6gGI.

Visual artist John Avelluto revels in mash-ups of sounds, images, products, and ideas where Italy and the United States converge. His multimedia work plays with Italian American culture and the existing linguistic and visual repertoire of vernacular references that have gone underappreciated and unexamined. It stands at a crossroads of what in Italian is referred to as contaminazione, those hybrid moments and places where ideas and idioms collide across ever-shifting borders to create innovative articulations. As part of the artistic process, this Brooklyn-born and raised artist employs a time-consuming method of layering numerous coats of acrylic paint to create strata of simulacrum imitating salami slices, dripping pizza, and other items that he augments and then applies to a flat surface. On view May 7–September 13, 2019 GALLERY HOURS: MONDAY–FRIDAY, 9AM–5PM Exhibition Opening: Tuesday, May 7, 2019, 6pm CLICK HERE TO SEE THE EXHIBITION CATALOG.

Dean Anthony J. Tamburri delivers the conference keynote address, "Signing Italian/American Cinema: A More Focused Look," to an overflow audience of conference attendees. You can watch all the sessions of this year's event, Eye-Centricity and the Visual Cultures of Italy and Its Diaspora, via the following links: 1  Architecture and Site-Specific Viewings 2  Signing Italian/American Cinema: A More Focused Look 3  Depictions on Canvas 4  Marketing Politics, Consumerism, and Tourism 5  Procession and Progression in the Mezzogiorno: Illuminating the Many Faces of the Mother 6 Seeing Is Believing 7  Spiritual View(ing)s in Italian American Writing and Visual Arts 8  Sonorities and Resistances 9  Illustrating Identities 10  Cinematic Takes   Nota bene: Not every session will be livestreamed as some participators have opted out of the livestream.   Click here to read the complete conference program.

On Saturday, April 13, Dr. Donna Chirico, dean of York College, CUNY, on behalf of the National Organization of Italian American Women presented Dean Anthony Julian Tamburri and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute with a Friend of NOIAW Award. In the audience were numerous luminaries including, but not limited to, New York First Lady Matilda Cuomo, Italian Consul Genral in New York Francesco Genuardi, and the two honorees for 2019 Sandra L. Depaolo and Dr. Judith A. Salerno. Incoming CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez congratulated all the honorees, via letter, saying of the Institute, "I am especially pleased to congratulate Dean Anthony and the Calandra Institute. ... The Institute is well-known for its quality research and events that enrich our understanding of and appreciation for all things and people Italian--including the many Italian women and women of Italian heritage who make outsize contributions to society."