Study Italian Diaspora Culture in Rome through a Unique Summer Program in June 2026The Italian Diaspora Studies Summer Seminar (IDSSS) is a three-week summer program that takes place at Roma Tre University. It is designed to introduce participants (doctoral students and professors) to cultural studies of the Italian diaspora from a variety of academic perspectives and to foster the development of individual projects responding to the materials covered in the series of seminars in literature, film, and the social sciences. All participants will be encouraged to engage in a special research project.
The Italian Diaspora Studies Summer Seminar is open to graduate students (doctorate; advanced MA students may be considered) and professors from colleges and universities worldwide. This is a collaborative program between the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Queens College of The City University of New York) and the Roma Tre University. Professors from these two institutions and others will comprise the teaching faculty for the entire three weeks. This is the tenth year of the Seminar.
The Seminar will accept up to twenty participants for the 2026 summer program. The dates for 2026 are June 15–July 03, 2026.
As of now, there are still some spots available, so please apply soon.
Fellowships of $1,500 per participant are available upon acceptance. Application forms can be found here.
Fellows will spend three weeks in a four-star hotel; the seminar classes will be held at Roma Tre University. Cost of room, board (breakfast and lunch), and tuition is $3,500. Graduate credit pending. Air and ground travel are additional. Click here for last summer’s brochure, which will give you an idea of the program.
Application Deadline: February 27, 2026
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This year marks the second of six funded years of the Panto Fellowship prize. The $1,000 fellowship is for graduate students who are writing their dissertation on any topic involving Italian emigrant and/or Italian ethnic labor and/or working-class life either in the United States or in the wider Italian diaspora.
This study examines the changing dynamics of the “Italian” writer and how we, as cultural critics, need to re-think our definitions of the new Italian writer. In so doing, we must also re-consider the notion of the geo-cultural zones that we characterize as “Italian.” Namely, how do we categorize that writer who, having left Italy and now living beyond its geo-cartographic boundaries, writes in Italian? Similarly, who is that other writer who, originating from another country that is both culturally and linguistically different from Italy, writes in Italian? Finally, where within these two groups do we position the writer of Italian origin who also lives in another country and, different from the previous two types of writers, composes his/her work in the language of his/her host country?
Anthony Julian Tamburri is a leading figure in the field of Italian/American studies. Examining literary and cinematographic works from the perspective of cultural issues related to the concepts of memory, ethnicity, migration, and diaspora, Tamburri has argued for the need to broaden the concept of “Italian identity,” which in recent decades has extended far beyond traditional boundaries. Tamburri has thus initiated a dialogue that aims to launch an interactive process of shared practices and knowledge, which can benefit both “Italian” communities, including in their relations with other American ethnic communities, and the wider contexts in which we operate, including the Mediterranean and countries where the Italian diaspora is present: a textual and cultural journey that ‘will certainly not be easy, as it will confront us with a series of linguistic, cultural and […] ideological deviations’ and will force us to take a close look at stories that have long been removed from our collective imagination.