Sunday dinners, basement kitchens, and backyard gardens are
everyday cultural entities long associated with Italian Americans,
yet the general perception of them remains superficial and
stereotypical at best. For many people, these scenarios trigger
ingrained assumptions about individuals’ beliefs, politics,
aesthetics, values, and behaviors that leave little room for nuance
and elaboration. This collection of essays explores local knowledge
and aesthetic practices, often marked as “folklore,” as sources
for creativity and meaning in Italian-American lives. As the
contributors demonstrate, folklore provides contemporary scholars
with occasions for observing and interpreting behaviors and objects
as part of lived experiences. Its study provides new ways of
understanding how individuals and groups reproduce and contest
identities and ideologies through expressive means. Italian Folk
offers an opportunity to reexamine and rethink what we know about
Italian Americans. The contributors to this unique book discuss
historic and contemporary cultural expressions and religious
practices from various parts of the United States and Canada to
examine how they operate at local, national, and transnational
levels. The essays attest to people’s ability and willingness to
create and reproduce certain cultural modes that connect them to
social entities such as the family, the neighborhood, and the
amorphous and fleeting communities that emerge in large-scale
festivals and now on the Internet. Italian Americans abandon,
reproduce, and/or revive various cultural elements in relationship
to ever-shifting political, economic, and social conditions. The
results are dynamic, hybrid cultural forms such as valtaro
accordion music, Sicilian oral poetry, a Columbus Day parade, and
witchcraft (stregheria). By taking a closer look and an
ethnographic approach to expressive behavior, we see that
Italian-American identity is far from being a linear path of
assimilation from Italian immigrant to American of Italian descent
but is instead fraught with conflict, negotiation, and creative
solutions. Together, these essays illustrate how folklore is evoked
in the continual process of identity revaluation and reformation.
General
| Imprint: |
Fordham University Press
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Series: |
Critical Studies in Italian America |
| Release date: |
November 2010 |
| Firstpublished: |
November 2010 |
| Editors: |
Joseph Sciorra
|
| Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 16mm (L x W x T) |
| Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
| Pages: |
288 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-8232-3266-6 |
| Categories: |
Books >
Social sciences >
General
Promotions
|
| LSN: |
0-8232-3266-2 |
| Barcode: |
9780823232666 |
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