RE-THINKING ITALIAN AMERICA AT BROOKLYN READING WORKS ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2011.
Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House presents Italians in America: History, Politics and the Everyday. On September 15th at 8PM curator Joanna Clapps Herman brings together a group of Italian American scholars and authors who examine the details of history as it was created, lived and spoken, but until very recently hidden from view of the larger academic and literary world in America.
As an American ethnic tribe, Italian-Americans came later than some other ethnic groups to studying and writing about the details of custom, culture, folkways and history of their people.
In the last 25 years however the flood gates have opened and there is now a rich body of written material examining all aspects of cultural history and daily ways of life. Each of the authors at this reading brings to light a particular aspect here-to-fore not examined piece of the Italian American way of life: history, language, vernacular culture and archaic customs preserved.
Joseph Sciorra is the Associate Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College (City University of New York). As a folklorist, he has published on religious practices, cultural landscapes, and popular music.
Nancy C. Carnevale is Associate Professor of History at Montclair State University and author of A New Language, A New World: Italian Immigrants in the United States, 1890-1945 (University of Illinois Press, 2009), winner of a 2010 American Book Award.
Jennifer Guglielmo specializes in the history of immigration, race, women, and labor in the United States, and is an Associate Professor of History at Smith College. Her recent book Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945 (UNC Press, 2010) documents Italian immigrant women’s commitment to revolutionary and transnational social movements, and explores how this activism diminished as they became white working-class Americans.
Joanna Clapps Herman has published poetry, fiction, memoirs and essays. Her latest publication is her memoir, The Anarchist Bastard: Growing Up Italian In America (SUNY Albany Press, March 2011) She is co-editor of Wild Dreams: The Best of Italian Americana (Fordham University Press, 2008), as well as co-editor of Our Roots Are Deep With Passion (Other Press, 2007).
When: September, 15, 2011 at 8PM
Where: The Old Stone House in Park Slope on 3rd Street between 5th and 4th Avenues. Note: due to construction in park enter from west side of the house.
What else: $5 suggested donation includes wine and refreshments. Books for sale.
For more information about the authors and the event please contact Louise Crawford at 718-288-4290 or louise_crawford@yahoo.com
BROOKLYN READING WORKS 2011-21012 SEASON:
September 15, 2011: Italian Americans: History, Politics and the Everyday curated by Joanna Clapps Herman
October 6, 2011: Tranformations on the Tongue curated by Pat Smith
November 17, 2011: Make Mine a Double (Why Women Like Us Like to Drink) curated by Gina Barreca
December 8, 2011: A Taste of Salt, a reading with novelist Martha Southgate and others.
January 12, 2001: The Truth and the Ghost Writer curated by John Guidry
March 15, 2012: The Year of the Dragon: Voices from the East curated by Sophia Romero
May 10: Edgy Mother’s Day curated by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romer