Dean Tamburri To Address Supreme Court of the State of New York

Today Calandra’s dean, Anthony J. Tamburri, will speak to the Appellate Division, Second Department, of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. His topic is “Italian Americans: Who We Were and Who We Are.”

Dean Tamburri Gives a Talk at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò on Italian American Film

 

On March 4, Calandra’s dean Prof. Tamburri spoke about the film Big Night (1996) from the perspective of identity. Through a comparative analysis of the three main characters (Primo, Secondo, and Pascal), we come to understand how Italian immigrants negotiated differently the challenges of the host country. Even of the same generation, we see how these three characters represent three different types of individuals, from one person to the next. Click here to see the entire presentation.

Artist Talk: A Conversation about Identity and Art

A Conversation about Identity and Art: John Avelluto, Joanne Mattera, Timothy McDowell, Sheila Pepe

Identity politics has become an increasingly significant aspect of the art world. This shift signaled, to a large degree, interventionist critiques by artists of color of an art scene and market dominated by straight, white men with a definitive Western perspective. Given this context, what does it mean to consider ethnic identity—italianità—when discussing US-based artists of Italian heritage? What are the benefits and limitations of organizing an exhibit featuring “21 Italian American artists” at an Italian American venue like the Calandra Institute? Join us for a conversation about cultural identity and art and other related topics.

February 29 Deadline: Italian Diaspora Summer Studies Seminar 2024

The Italian Diaspora Studies Summer Seminar™ 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 development of individual projects responding to the materials covered in the series of seminars in literature, film, and the social sciences. All participants will 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 of the entire three weeks. This is the seventh year of the Italian Diaspora Studies Summer Seminar.

The program will be accepting up to twenty participants for the 2024 summer program. The dates for this year are from June 10–28, 2024.

Fellowships of $1,500 per participant are available upon acceptance. Application forms can be found on-line at www.calandrainstitute.org.

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 $3,300. Graduate credit pending. Air and ground travel are additional. Click here for the application form and click here for last summer’s brochure, which will give you an idea of the program.

Application Deadline—February 29, 2024

Click here to read or download the latest Italian Diaspora Summer Studies Seminar booklet as a PDF.

Exhibition Extended through April 2024: “A Legacy of Making: 21 Contemporary Italian American Artists”

“A Legacy of Making: 21 Contemporary Italian American Artists” currently on view at the John D Calandra Italian American Institute in Midtown Manhattan, will run until the end of April, 2024. Curated by Joseph Sciorra and Joanne Mattera, the exhibition features the work of artists based in New York City who are Italian American, or Italian born and and now living here, whose immigrant experience has informed them personally and artistically.
On Wednesday, December 13, artists in the exhibition will be present to speak informally in the gallery about their work, 6:00-7:30. You are invited. Come and see the show and engage with the artists.
Info:
. The Calandra Institute is at 25 W. 43 Street, 17th floor, New York City.
. Read a conversation between John Avelluto and Joanne Mattera in Two Coats of Paint: https://twocoatsofpaint.com/…/an-italian-american…
. See a walk-through of the show on Mattera’s blog: https://joannematteraartblog.blogspot.com/…/a-legacy-of…
. Artists were selected from the newly published book Italianità: Contemporary Art Inspired by the Italian Immigrant Experience: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/italianit%c3%a0

The Giovanni Schiavo Book Series Launch

On May 9, 2023, Bordighera Press republished The Italians in America Before the Revolution, by Giovanni Schiavo, as the first book in the Giovanni Schiavo Series.

On Wednesday, May 24, 2023, join Stanislao G. Pugliese, Marcella Bencivenni, and Stephen J. Cerulli at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute for a conversation on Schiavo, his legacy, and the practice of Italian American history.

Giovanni Schiavo is considered one of the pioneers of Italian American studies. He dedicated his life to highlighting Italian contributions to the United States of America. Schiavo published numerous volumes on Italian American history including: Italian-American History: Volume I; Italian-American History Volume II: Contribution to the Catholic Church; Four Centuries of Italian-American History; The Italians in America Before the Civil War; The Italians in America Before the Revolution; Antonio Meucci: Inventor of the Telephone; Italians in Missouri; and The Italians in Chicago.

The Giovanni Schiavo Series aims, in honor of its namesake, to “attempt to rescue from oblivion” the work of the founders of Italian American and Italian Diaspora studies as an academic discipline. The field has expanded greatly, especially during the last twenty-five years of the twentieth century; as a result, a plethora of contemporary works fill the shelves of scholars, readers, and university libraries. However, many of the classics remain out of print. Hence, in the spirit of Giovanni Schiavo, who sought to highlight the experience of Italian Americans’ forgotten past, we seek to do the same but with scholarly works on Italian American subjects.

Stanislao G. Pugliese is the Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian & Italian American Studies at Hofstra University. He specializes in modern Italy, Italian Fascism and anti-Fascism, the Holocaust, Italian Jews, Italian American history and culture, and modern Europe’s intellectual and cultural history. He is the author, editor, and/or translator of fifteen books on Italian and Italian American history. In 2009, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux published Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone, which won the Fraenkel Prize in London, the Premio Flaiano in Italy, and the Howard Marraro Prize from the American Historical Association. He co-edited The Routledge History of Italian Americans with William Connell.

Marcella Bencivenni is a professor of history at Hostos Community College, CUNY. Her research focuses on the histories of im/migration, labor, and social movements in the modern United States, with a particular interest in the Italian diaspora. She is the author of Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in the United States, 1890–1940 (NYU Press, 2011, repr. 2014), and co-editor of Radical Perspectives on Immigration (Routledge, 2008), a special issue of the journal Socialism and Democracy of which she is an editorial board member. She is editor emerita of the Italian American Review.

Stephen J. Cerulli is the Bennet Distinguished Fellow at Fordham University, where he is a PhD candidate in modern history. He holds two appointments at The City University of New York as a Lecturer in Social Sciences at Hostos Community College (CUNY), and as a researcher at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College (CUNY). He sits on the board of the Italian Enclaves Historical Society. His writings on Italian America have appeared in La Voce di New York, Ovunque Siamo, and Pumarol.

Pete Panto Headstone Installed

Photograph of Pete Panto headstone taken by Dr Joseph Sciorra
Photograph courtesy of Joseph Sciorra

From the Calandra Institute’s Director for Academic and Public Programming Dr. Joseph Sciorra: “I am euphoric to announce that a tombstone for murdered dock worker and labor activist Pietro ‘Pete’ Panto was recently placed at his grave that went unmarked for 82 years. I thank all of you who made this possible, with your support, your donations, and work of various sorts. We will soon be organizing a ceremony at the site. Stay tuned.”

Presentation of the Joseph Tusiani Italian Translation Prize

The Tusiani Translation Prize will be presented to Geoffrey Brock for his translation of Giuseppe Ungaretti‘s Allegria. Presenting the prize will be Chairman of the Prize, Prof. Gaetano Cipolla, and the members of the Judging Committee: Peter Carravetta, Michael Palma, Giuseppe Perricone, and Minna Zallman Proctor, as well as Luigi Bonaffini, editor of Journal of Italian Translation, which sponsors the Tusiani Prize. The program will include a bilingual reading of excerpts of Brock’s translation. Sponsored by the Journal of Italian Translation and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, QC/CUNY.

Dean Tamburri Interviewed for “Tutto Italiano!” Radio Show

tamburri.jpgThe Tutto Italiano! radio show interviewed Dean Tamburri Sunday, May 15, 2022. Here is the episode description:

“Join us with guest Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Queens College, CUNY) and Distinguished Professor of European Languages and Literatures. His research interests lie in literature, cinema, semiotics, interpretation theory, and cultural studies. Dr. Tamburri has divided his intellectual work evenly between Italian and Italian/American studies, authoring sixteen books and more than one hundred essays on both subject areas in English and Italian.”

And you can listen to the complete episode here: https://radiokingston.org/en/broadcast/tutto-italiano/episodes/anthony-julian-tamburri-dean-of-the-john-d-calandra-italian-american-institute

Video of Claudia Durastanti’s Reading at Calandra

Writer Claudia Durastanti
Durastanti at Calandra

In April writer Claudia Durastanti came to the Calandra Institute to give a reading from her acclaimed book Strangers I Know as part of our regular Writers Read series, which has begun again in person for the first time since 2020. Joseph Salvatore interviewed her about the work and her life. Our cable TV show Italics crew were there to tape the event, and now you can watch the entire event here.