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Annual Conference: Terre Promesse: Excursions Towards Italian Topographies, April 23-24, 2010Italian/American Digital ProjectBook SaleWelcome to the Calandra Institute
Welcome to
the home page of the John D. Calandra Italian
American Institute! As I complete the third year of my tenure as Dean, I am
delighted at what the Institute has accomplished over these past three years,
and I continue to admire the dedication of various members of the
Institute’s productive staff. I am happy
to be able to state that we, as a group, have enjoyed much success and earned
the accolades of many through the plethora of cultural and intellectual activites, as well as exhibitions, that the staff has
organized, coordinated, and curated. Be they photo
or historical sheet music exhibits, the various bi-weekly activities the
Institute organized, the national and international symposia, film reviews,
and conferences, and our TV program Italics,
the Institute is surely situated close to if not at the center of the
attention of many in the intellectual world of Italian Americana. This, to be
sure, should be one of our goals: namely, that the Institute be that
intellectual point of encounter where new ideas and innovative modes of
analysis are articulated and discussed. This, furthermore, should also take
place on an international level, as the Institute is also the university-wide
sponsor of the CUNY/Italy Exchange. The more
recent cultural, demographic, and linguistic studies of these past three
years have also unearthed some new aspects of the Italian-American
experience. I point to our recent publication of Sì, parliamo italiano,
co-written by Vincenzo Milione
and Christine Gambino. In a similar vein, Joseph Sciorra has worked diligently to re-launch The Italian American Review, a social
science journal that is very much needed in our community. Within the
creative realm, Fred Gardaphe, our Distinguished
Professor, just published a book of short stories in In
addition, the Institute continues to engage in its more local activities such
as the research and analysis of the Italian-American experience both within
The City University of New York as well as across the academic communities at
large. The picture, in this regard, is not as rosy as one would want it. I am
also hopeful that the Institute solidifies itself as a kind of “punto di ritrovo,”
as we say in Italian, a meeting place for our CUNY paesani: Italians, Italian
Americans, and all others interested in things “Italian”! We have
made progess since August 2006, but not enough. We
still need to work through our campus representatives at both the staff and
professorial levels. This
website ultimately brings together, in one place, information about our Institute’s
activities and initiatives as well as those of other organizations within the
greater Italian-American community. We have been working on a new website,
and the challenges have been great, both technically and bureaucratically. We
are hopeful that we can have a new look in the near future. We
continue to move forward during what is still a period of transition, as it
easily takes three to five years to re-vamp any organization as complex as
the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute. We look
forward to welcoming you to any and all of our unique cultural, social, and
historical programs. Con i miei più cordiali
saluti,
Anthony Julian Tamburri Dean
& Professor
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