How excited and proud all Sicilian Americans can feel about an international conference about Sicily being held at a crème de la crème Ivy League University (see: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/event/2016/02/sicily-language-art-and-culture -- see PDF link at bottom). Not to mention that the same University of Pennsylvania offers a course in the Sicilian ‘Language’ (Not Dialect!!) (see: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/pc/course/2015C/ITAL105). And ever so happily, it was not a conference about the Mafia. /// /// However, like magnificent tragic heroes, this magnificent conference had a tragic flaw. As with American universities’ Italian Studies programs generally, this gathering of Sicilian culturati was dominated by the literati. /// /// Based on Google name searches: twenty-three (23) of the thirty-three (33) presenters have degrees in, teach and/or research Italian literature; fully 70% (see table below). One (1) presenter has a degree in 'social history' (i.e. Southern Italian History). As with American Italian Studies scholars generally, the ‘amanti della sicilia’ manifests the same disregard for what the great historian Marc Bloch called, and titled has book on the subject, “The Historian’s Craft.” Literary scholars often tacitly (if not overtly) embrace the assumption that societies can be know by the literature produced in that society. Of course, literature documents are very significant and not to be ignored remnant documents of the past. However, they are not the only documents, and knowledge of society entails correlation with documents of other genera (economic, political, military, journalism, religious, etc.). /// /// Like the parable of the five blind men trying to know an elephant, each feeling one part of the elephant's body; the literati ‘feel’ only one part of society – the literary part. Sadly, from the point of view of the southern-Italian American masses, who thirst for knowledge of their ‘old country’ progeneration, American universities' Italian Studies only provide knowledge of the ‘elephant’s leg’ – as it were. Worst: only part of ‘the leg’! /// /// Thus for example, at this conference, more ink was added to the gallons spilled on the endless and perennial Sciascia ‘love-fest’. Meanwhile the absolutely and unequivocally most significant documentary window into the Sicilian peasant culture of the great migration to America – not a pencil mark about the anthropological works of Pietre; ignored and largely not translated (see Related Articles # 1). Similarly, the documentary window into the Risorgimento that gave rise to that migration, such as the works of Michele Amari are largely un-translated and ignored (see Related Articles #2). /// /// All of which is not to say the U of Penn conference was not wonderful, in the sense that it demonstrates that there is more, much more than 'crime' to the magnificent history and culture of Sicily. Rather, it is to note that when it comes to bringing the fullness of that history and culture to fruition – we need more scholars from different schools of the ‘blind’ – so to speak. Sicilian literary scholars, to my mind, should be reaching out to other academic disciplines to form a heterogeneous Sicilian Scholars Association. For example, the keynote speaker at the 2012 American Association for Italian Studies’ conference was the renown English social historian of the Mezzogiorno John Dickie. Although, frankly, I suspect the motivation for bringing Prof. Dickie to speak, at that 69% female dominated association, had more do with his women’s issues subject matter than the recognition that Italian Studies needs to augment literary criticism with good dose of historiography (see Related Articles #3)