Studies in Italian American folklore

✍ Scribed by Luisa Del Giudice

• Publisher: Utah State University Press
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 294
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Through its collection of interpretive essays on folk culture, this book attains a depth of analysis rarely achieved in Italian American folklore scholarship. The folklife of Italian Americans is not evolving in a vacuum; it draws from dynamic specific and local as well as regional and national Italian cultural expressions. The interplay of these variables, in tension with American and Canadian society, contextualizes New World traditions - from the archvillas of Toronto, Canada, to the festival foods of Italians in Indiana, the sung villanella of Calabrians in New York, cultural stereotypes of Italians in Northern California, the "invention" of Italy by 1920s Philadelphians, and the multiple meanings of a grotto shrine on Staten Island. These essays will set a new standard for Italian American folklore scholarship.
An introduction to Studies in Italian American Folklore analyzes the recently controversial figure of Christopher Columbus in Italian folk culture and considers the meaning of his commemoration. The collection includes the first comprehensive bibliography of Italian American and Canadian folklore scholarship.

✦ Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Acknowledgments (page vii)
Introduction (Luisa Del Giudice, page 1)
1 Tears of Blood: The Calabrian Villanella and Immigrant Epiphanies (Anna L. Chairetakis, page 11)
2 The "Archvilla": An Italian Canadian Architectural Archetype (Luisa Del Giudice, page 53)
3 Playing with Food: The Negotiation of Identity in the Ethnic Display Event by Italian Americans in Clinton, Indiana (Sabina Magliocco, page 107)
4 From the Paese to the Patria: An Italian American Pilgrimage to Rome in 1929 (Dorothy Noyes, page 127)
5 Stereotypes as Cultural Constructs: A Kaleidoscopic Picture of Italian Americans in Northern California (Paola Schellenbaum, page 153)
6 Multivocality and Vernacular Architecture: The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island (Joseph Sciorra, page 203)
Bibliography of Italian American and Italian Canadian Folklore (Luisa Del Giudice, page 245)
Contributors (page 271)
Index (page 273)