January 19, 2021, marks one year since the passing of our dear friend Robert Viscusi. As I wrote last year, for those of us who knew Bob well, we knew a kind man, someone who was always respectfully inquisitive and concerned about his friends and, at the same time, always
This spring, instead of hosting our annual conference at the Calandra Institute offices on 43rd St. in Midtown Manhattan, we'll be expanding our event space almost infinitely ... online. All presentations and panels for this year's conference—Italian Borderlands: Restrictions, Breaches, Encounters—will be held every weekday at 2pm EST April 5 through 21, 2021, on Zoom. Click here to see the complete conference program and to register for sessions/events.
As always, the conference, like all Calandra's public programming, is free and open to everyone.
Calandra's Dean Anthony Tamburri spoke with Francesco Ricatti, senior lecturer in Italian studies at Australia's Monash University, about the academic field and why Italians sometimes get left out of anthologies. Watch the entire Calandra Corner episode here.
To watch all Calandra Corner episodes, click here.
Stefano Albertini. Photo courtesy La Voce di New York
Dr. Joseph Sciorra met online with Casa Italia's Stefano Albertini for a wide-ranging arts discussion that covered opera and Moonstruck. Click here to watch the whole conversation.
To watch all Calandra Corner episodes, click here.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, venues that devote resources to public programming, like the Calandra Institute, have had to switch things up a bit. Calandra Corner is a new and flexible means by which we have been able to continue with some of our scheduled events that could not take place in person as well as add other fun and informative online events. These new offerings are mostly shorter and more casual conversations with people in and around the Italian American community who continue to do exciting work. Click here to see all the Corner conversations to date, and check back often, because we are only doing more.
Host Anthony Tamburri interviews Mark Rotella, the author of Amore: The Story of Italian American Song and Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria, as Rotella describes how his search for his own Italian American identity led to the writing of both books.
Rotella's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Washington Post, and the Village Voice, among others.