John Gennari, University of Vermont Tenor saxophonist and jazz composer Joe Lovano’s 2002 recording “Viva Caruso” features small combos and a 12-piece chamber ensemble performing…

Donna Gabaccia (University of Minnesota) Most settlements of Italians around the world were not called “Little Italy.” The phrase seems to have been invented in…

Carol Stabile (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) In April 1941, the United States army drafted Michael Stabile of Nutley, New Jersey, one of thirteen children born to…

Fred Gardaphé (Stony Brook University) Since the gangster’s earliest appearance in American cinema, there has been regular association between the gangster figure and the Italian/American…

Matthew Frye Jacobson (Yale University) In the 1950s, America was seen as a vast melting pot in which white ethnic affiliations were on the wane…

Robert Casillo, University of Miami Widely acclaimed as America’s greatest living film director, Martin Scorsese is also, some argue, the pre-eminent Italian-American artist. His most…

Hermann W. Haller, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York Eduardo Migliaccio (1882-1946), known as Farfariello, was widely considered one of…

Maria C. Lizzi, University of Albany, SUNY Speaking to an unfriendly crowd at a 1969 Harlem rally, New York City mayoral hopeful Mario Procaccino proclaimed,…

Tarry Hum, Queens College, and Jerry Krase, Brooklyn College This collaborative presentation emphasizes a political economic approach to ethnic enclaves and argues that the role…

Sabina Magliocco, California State University-Northridge When Italians came to North America, they brought with them a panoply of vernacular healing traditions, from herbal cures to…

Ilaria Serra, Florida Atlantic University “Immigrants left behind sweat and tears, but no memories,” wrote the Italian scholar Giuseppe Prezzolini, in his search for first-person…

Richard Alba, State University of New York-Albany In the United States, Italian Americans and other European groups from predominantly Catholic backgrounds provide a critical test…