NANCY C.
CARNEVALE’S book, A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890-1945 (University of Illinois Press), will be published in March 2009. “ In A New Language, A New World, Nancy C.Carnevale does something that historians have long claimed that they would do, but in fact never did: she takes language seriously. Carnevale focuses on the language world of Italian immigrants in the United States and examines in intricate and intimate details how language shaped them and structured their encounter with America." --Hasia R. Diner, author of Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration. “By focusing on the everyday linguistic practices of ordinary immigrants, Carnevale's study is truly path-breaking, opening new ground in the study of immigrant language usage. Refreshingly original and enormously stimulating." --Donna Gabaccia, coeditor of American Dreaming, Global Realities: Rethinking U.S. Immigration History [email protected]
DANIELA GIOSEFFI, American Book Award winning author of twelve books of poetry and prose, recently published BLOOD AUTUMN, Autunno di sangue, in a bilingual edition of her new and selected poems, translated into Italian by award winning translators, Elise Biagini, Luigi Bonaffini, Ned Condini, Luigi Fontanella, and Irene Marchigiani.(Bordighera Press:CUNY, New York.) Gioseffi also won the 2007 John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry and the OSIA New York State Literary Award, 2008. Her verse has been etched in marble on a wall of PENN Station near that of Walt Whitman’s and other famous American poets. Hers is the only Italian name among the poets whose verses appear on the walls of the 7th Avenue Concourse of PENN Station in New York. Gioseffi also won a Lifetime Achievement Award in Education from The Association of Italian American Educators. Daniela is editor and publishers of www.ItalianAmericanWriters.com/ and she founded the only book publication prize for Italian American poets The Annual $2,000 Bordighera Poetry Prize.
JOHN PAUL RUSSO, Prof. of English and Classics, Univ. of Miami (Florida), gave the keynote lecture, “Have the Humanities Declined?” at the conference at the University of Salerno celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Fulbright Program in Italy in December 2008. In attendance was Dott. Maria Grazia Quieti, director of the Italian Fulbright program. Prof. Russo examined the present state of the humanities, developing themes from his recent book The Future without a Past, winner of the Thomas N. Bonner Award for a study of the liberal arts.
FRANK A. SALAMONE had his Italians of Rochester, 1940-1960 published in 2008. He presented a talk to the Casa Italiana of Rochester, NY, in September. His Viewing an Ethnic Community: The Italians of Rochester, NY is due out in August, 2009. He has published a book The Culture of Jazz: Jazz as Critical Culture, including a chapter on Italians in jazz. Additionally, he has published a book on The Lucy Memorial Freed Slaves' Home in Nigeria and a number of articles. He has also presented paper at various conferences. [email protected]
DENNIS BARONE'S recent essays on Italian American authors include one on Jo Pagano ("Pagano's Gold" Italian Americana 26.1 [2008]: 71-82) and one on Joseph Papaleo ("'Machines Are Us': Joseph Papaleo and the Literature of Sprawl" Forum Italicum 42.1 [2008]: 99-113). Bordighera Press recently published his edition of Emanuel Carnivali's poems entitled Furnished Rooms. At the 2008 MLA Convention in San Francisco he chaired the Italian American Discussion Group session on Italian American Literary Innovation. Dennis's new book of fiction is North Arrow (Quale Press). Both North Arrow and the Carnevali book can be purchased through the publishers, Amazon, or Small Press Distribution. [email protected]
ERNESTO R MILANI has translated Robert Tanzilo’s Piemontesi Voices – Emigrants from Piemonte to the United States in their own Voices that has been published by Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria on behalf of Regione Piemonte in February 2009. He is currently completing the chapter of a textbook about Lombard migration sponsored by Regione Lombardia featuring Lombards who have distinguished themselves around the world through the centuries. For example the United States section features, among others, father Samuel Mazzuchelli, Giacomo Beltrami, Paul Busti, John Fugazi, mother Francesca Cabrini, Charles Comolli, Frank Latuda, Joe Garagiola, Yogi Berra and Tullio Suzzara- Verdi. Illustrious Lombards around the world are to found everywhere especially in Argentina, where two presidents Arturo Umberto Illia and Juan Carlos Ongania and dozens entrepreneurs hailed from Lombardy. Charles Bianconi pioneered the Irish transportation network; Lorenzo Boturini is still remembered for his research about Aztec history highlighted by the Codex Boturini of Mexico City, while geographer and botanist Antonio Raimondi investigated Peru’s flora and fauna. He continues writing for the portal www.lombardinelmondo.org sponsored by Regione Lombardia to enhance the study and knowledge of Lombard migration. [email protected]
DIANE DI PRIMA received the Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award in December 2008 from PEN Oakland. [email protected]
STANISLAO G. PUGLIESE, Professor of History at Hofstra University, was
awarded a Puffin Foundation Grant for his photo essay, “The Stones of
Purgatory.” The project, related to his forthcoming book, “Bitter
Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone”, is to display 24 black & white
photographs of the ancient part of Pescina, Silone’s home town in
Abruzzo, destroyed in the earthquake of 1915, which claimed Silone’s
mother. “Bitter Spring”, in manuscript form, has been awarded the
Fraenkel Prize by the Institute for Contemporary History in London. It
is scheduled for publication in June 2009. [email protected]
Educator, scholar, writer, and Fairleigh Dickinson University professor emerita, as well as college president, administrator, and treasurer of the Religious Teachers Filippini, MARGHERITA MARCHIONE has published more than 60 books of fundamental studies on Clemente Rebora, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Philip Mazzei and other topics. The lastest on Pope Pius XII are: The Truth Will Set You Free: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Death of Pope Pius XII, Paulist Press, New York/Mahwah, NJ, 2008, 150pp. La verità ti farà libero (50esimo anniversario dLa anniella morte di Pio XII), Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2008, 141pp. Anthology (English and Italian) Commemorating the 70th Anniversary of Coronation of Pope Pius XII, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2009. She will be honored at an Awards Banquet in Uniondale, New York, by the Catholic Education Foundation on April 17, 2009. [email protected]
Editor Justin Rossi of the Harvard College Journal of Italian American History and Culture has accepted for publication BLOSSOM S. KIRSCHENBAUM’S ([email protected]) translations of seven poems by Antonello Borra. The poems, which are to appear bilingually, have animals as their subjects: il Coniglio/ the Rabbit; la Lepre/ the Hare; il Topo/ the Rat; lo Scarafaggio/ the Cockroach; la Coccinella/ the Ladybug; l’Ornitorinco/ the Platypus; and il Dodo/ (of course) the Dodo. What relates these poems to “the Italian-American experience” is that they subsume, along with philosophic and poetic traditions of both languages and both countries, a working relationship between an Italian-born scholar currently teaching at the University of Vermont in Burlington and an American-born scholar based at Brown University who lived for several years in Italy and who had previously translated other animals from the romanesco dialect of Trilussa, in a book titled “Fables from Trastevere.” The poems for the Harvard journal are among forty or so that constitute Professor Borra’s “Bestiary.” That volume has just been accepted for publication in Italian by Lietocolle, the publisher that brought out his “Frammenti di tormenti 2”; but he and Kirschenbaum retain rights to their bilingual illustrated edition, for which they are seeking an American publisher.
On February 12, 2009 EMELISE ALEANDRI read her translation of Etta Cascini’s play SHHHHHHHHH from the Journal of Italian Translation edited by Luigi Bonaffini; sponsored by the Italian American Writers Association at the Cornelia Street Café in NYC. The play features Georgia, a meditation instructor during an encounter while proselytizing at an airport. Emelise presents The Masks of Venice, her popular lecture, mask demonstration, and video on February 18th for the Italian class at Suffolk County Community College and on May 30th at Bella Italia Mia in Middle Village, Queens. In March, the UFT Italian-American Committee Theatre Group, chaired by Emelise Aleandri, celebrates Women’s History Month with a reading from Angela Rago’s novel, Yesterday’s Sky performed by the Frizzi & Lazzi Theatre Company. The novel explores the struggles of Italian women in a Southern Italian town, and their dreams of emigrating to America. Aleandri is Artistic Director of Frizzi Lazzi. On April 24th Drs. Emelise Aleandri and Gloria Salerno are Keynote Speakers at the American Association of University Women Oregon State Convention in Bend, Oregon. They will lecture on their book about the hostile work environment they experienced at CUNY and the results of action they brought in Federal Court. [email protected]
LUCIA CHIAVOLA BIRNBAUM'S niche as a sicilian~american grandmother and feminist cultural historian (Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy, religion, and women's spirituality, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco) has recently been feathered by italian (La Madre O-Scura)and african/french (La Mere Noire) editions of her Dark mother. African origins and godmothers (2001). In 2008, Menaibuc Editions, her african publisher in Paris ( La Mere Noire) dubbed her: "Grand Protectrice des Nations Negres pour son engagement et son travail de recerche en rue de la Renaissance Kamite." In 2009 Lucia has been invited to participate in the theology session of the International Women's Conference of Loyola University at Rome on April 1 and 2. Her work in progress, The future has an ancient heart. Transformational african migration paths, notably around the Mediterranean, is slated for publication in France, Italy, and USA in 2010. She is also the prize-winning author of Black Madonnas. Feminism, religion, and politics in Italy Northeastern University Press, 1994; italian edition, Palomar Editrice, Bari.1997). Premio Internazionale di Saggistica, Salerno, Italia, 1998. Induction into African American Educators Hall of Fame (1996). She received a Before Columbus Award for Liberazione della donna. Feminism in Italy (Wesleyan University Press, 1986, 1988). A long time member of the American Italian Historical Association, she co-founded the organization's Women's Caucus. [email protected]
When he wasn't busy with his "Traces" blog on i-italy.org, JERRY KRASE published (Co-ed) AIHA's Italian Americans Before Mass Migration, where his “Ethnic Succession in Little and Big Italy” reappeared, as well as “The American Italian Historical Association: A View from the Bridge,” in Polish American Studies, "Sucesión étnica en Little & Big Italy,” in Bifurcaciones, http://www.bifurcaciones.cl/008/Krase.htm , "La trasformazione delle Little Italy di New YorkCity< /i>", in Letteratura Italoamericana, “Scrivere e Riscrivere: Leggere e Rileggere il testo della citta via imagine,” in Migrazioni ePaesaggi Urbani. His papers included “The Jordan Family in Politics" at the AIHA Meeting in New Haven, “Interpreting the Italian Look, or: What Looks Italian?,” at the Calandra Institute, and Stony Brook University's "Forum on Italian American Criticism" in NYC. In Barcelona for the International Sociological Association, he co-presented “Visualizing Glocalization", in St. Petersburg, Russia it was “Seeing the Local in Global Cities” at the “Public Space and Social Cohesion in the City" conference. Professor Krase gave the Keynote “Popular Italian Touches in Neighborhoods" for Nassau Community College's Italian Heritage Event, spoke about “Italian-American Politics" at Calandra's "Italians in the Americas Conference" and further abroad, moderated a panel at a “Migration in Museums" conference for the International Council of Museums and Centre de Documentations sur les Migrations Humaines in Berlin. [email protected]
PAUL SALSINI ([email protected]) will discuss his novels, The Cielo: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany and its sequel, Sparrow's Revenge: A Novel of Postwar Tuscany, as part of a panel on historical fiction at noon Thursday, March 19, at the Virginia Festival of Books, Charlottesville, Va. He will also discuss his novels at 11 a.m. Sunday, March 8, at the Spring Writers Festival of the School of Continuing Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
LOUISA CALIO will be directing the 8th Poets and Writers Piazza for Hofstra’s Italian Experience this coming Sept. 20, 2009. Look for more details at www.aiae.net and in the IAWA newsletter.
Louisa’s poem “Body of Joy” appears in Sisters Singing: Incantations, Blessings, Chants, Prayers, Art, Songs and Sacred Stories by Women, currently released by Wild Girl Press. The Book celebrates and honors the sacred in our lives, and the abundant and transformative ways in which women carry and praise and dance with the divine spirits of this beautiful planet and world. Wild Girl Publishing encouraging people to know their own wild souls.
Three of Calio’s poems with translations by Elisabetta Marino of University of Rome are in the latest issue of the Journal Italian/American Poetry in Translation edited by Luigi Bonafini. A new exciting anthology Birthed from Scorched Hearts, Women respond to War edited by Mari Jo Moore includes the essay and poem “Eritrea my Ithaca” by Louisa Calio, inspired by her journey to East Africa.www.marijomoore.com) now available from Fulcrum Publishing, Golden, CO.
Louisa has been invited to submit her work to the 2009 edition of Northsea Poetry Anthology edited by Tammy Nuzzo- Morgan and David Axelrod. Several more of her poems will appear in the anthology More Sweet Lemons writings by Sicilian and Sicilian Americans edited by Venera Fazio. Her poem “ Mamma Mia to the tune by Abba” and short Story, “Goddess Mother” appear in Remembrances a new anthology edited by Edward Albert Maruggi.(Winston Publications).
LEONARD GUERCIO [email protected] manages the Motion Picture Lab at Temple University in Philadelphia where he has also taught as an adjunct Film Professor. In 2008, Len’s short film, TIRAMISU`, was shown in a retrospective of New Italian-American Filmmakers, produced by CUNY’s Calandra Institute in New York City. His short documentary, THE ST. NICHOLAS AUTHENTIC ITALIAN FESTIVAL (2008), is currently airing on MiND TV/Channel 35’s Philadelphia Stories 6 series, featuring the works of local filmmakers. Also in 2008, Len produced Here’s To Life, a music CD featuring singer, Billy Ruth, in a selection of covers from the Great American Songbook.
A contributing writer for Student Filmmakers magazine, a national film industry periodical, Len interviewed filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan in a cover story for the June 2008 edition. He is guest host for a series of contemporary Italian films at the America-Italy Society in Philadelphia. Over the last year, he has also given Italian and Italian-American film presentations at Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Cape May Film Festival and Hammonton High School in south New Jersey. Len continues to write and develop new projects in the hope that Italians and Italian-Americans will support artists whose works add to our traditionally rich culture.
MARIO TOGLIA ([email protected]) reports that a grassroots campaign is underway in New York to save a National Italian Catholic church in Brooklyn. A petition has been filed to have Our Lady of Loreto on Sackman Street designated a landmark. The church begun in 1894 and built by Italian immigrant bricklayers and laborers was where some 30 Italian religious societies for many decades gathered to honor the patron saints of their paesi and celebrate their religious traditions. The movement to save this architecturally beautiful church reflects a “books-to-buildings” shift in how Italian American are looking at saving remembrances of their ethnic history.
