Stefano Morello, Graduate Center, CUNY
Founded in 1943 in New York City, the weekly Divagando became the most widely circulated Italian-language magazine in the United States. Presenting literature, journalism, opinion columns, and advertisements, Divagando served as a key venue through which modernity was mediated for readers on both sides of the Atlantic. Stefano Morello’s talk approaches Divagando as a central hub within a broader infrastructure of transatlantic cultural exchange. He will map the people, institutions, and channels that sustained these exchanges, tracing both continuities and reconfigurations as new media forms, consumer cultures, and political horizons shaped postwar modern Italian and Italian American identities. This presentation is based on the winning paper of the 2024–2025 Francesco Durante Award. The prize was established by James Periconi in 2020 to be awarded for the best original essay in English or Italian submitted by a scholar of Italian American or Italian diaspora literature, history, and/or culture.