Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 5 to 7 p.m.

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY … The Hofstra Cultural Center, Hofstra  College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Program in Italian Studies and Italian American Studies will present “For a Rosary of Memories: Italian American Women Writers and Artists and Memory-Work” on Tuesday, March 31, from 5 to 7 p.m. This program features a discussion by writers and artists on women’s role as bearers of personal and collective memory.

Admission is free. This event will take place at the Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, located on the first floor of Hofstra’s Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library on the South Campus. For more information on “For a Rosary of Memories: Italian American Women Writers and Artists and Memory-Work” please call the Hofstra Cultural Center at (516) 463-5669 or visit www.hofstra.edu/culture.

Pellegrino D’Acierno, professor of comparative literature and Hofstra’s UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian Studies and Italian American Studies, will serve as moderator.

The program’s guest panelists work in various mediums, but through their art each has constructed narratives that preserve the past. Their own personal stories and histories can been seen as part of the collective history of Italian Americans and of the immigrant or ethnic experience at large. These stories and histories can also be related to gender studies, and the role women play in both family structure and society.

Panelists are:

Helen Barolini, novelist, poet, essayist; author of Umbertina, has created a bridge between her American homeland and Italy and has given voice through her writing to the Italian American experience. She was married to the late Italian author, Antonio Barolini, whose work she translated. Over fifty of her own short stories and essays have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, and annual editions of Best American Essays.
               
Gioia Timpanelli, master storyteller (cantastorie) and novelist, is one of the founders of the current worldwide revival of the art of storytelling. As well as being a college English teacher (City University of New York and Poetry and Literature teacher at The New School for Social Research), she created, wrote, produced and broadcast for 12 years eight series (15 and 30 programs each) on poetry, stories, literature for Educational Television and received two Emmy citations for Stories from My House. Among many awards, she was given the Women's National Book Award for her lifelong work in the oral tradition and the Maharishi Award for “promoting world harmony by enlivening within the listener that field of pure consciousness that is the source of all stories.”

B. Amore, celebrated sculptor and visual artist, has spent her life between Italy and America.  She studied at Boston University, University of Rome, Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara and is the recipient of Massachusetts Cultural grants, Fulbright Grant, Mellon Fellowship as well as a Citation of Merit Award presented by the Vermont Arts Council. Life line - filo della vita, her multimedia, six-room exhibition, premiered at Ellis Island and has traveled in the United States and Italy. An Italian American Odyssey, Life line - filo della vita:  Through Ellis Island and Beyond, which includes both the visuals and expanded text of the exhibit, has been chosen as a National Book Club choice by OSIA.  Amore’s sculptures and writing explore memory, the many layered nature of existence and the relationship between human perception and history.   
           
Edvige Giunta, distinguished memoriste; author of Writing With an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors, is a professor of English at New Jersey City University and coeditor of Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy. Other books include Dire l'indicibile: Il memoir delle autrici italo americane (University of Siena, 2002), The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture, coedited with Louise DeSalvo, (The Feminist Press, 2002), Italian American Writers on New Jersey, coedited with Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan (Rutgers University Press, 2003), and Teaching Italian American Literature, Film, and Popular Culture (Modern Language Association; forthcoming in 2010), co-edited with Kathleen Zamboni McCormick.

The event is the first to be held in honor of the establishment of the Hofstra University Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professorship in Italian Studies and Italian American Studies. The professorship is intended to create a dialogue between Italian and Italian American culture, between the cultures of the nation and of the diaspora.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from more than 145 undergraduate and 160 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, engineering, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis. Hofstra offers a faculty whose highest priority is teaching excellence. The University also provides excellent facilities with state-of-the-art technology, extensive library resources and internship programs that match students’ interests and abilities with appropriate companies and organizations.  The Hofstra community is driven, dynamic and energetic, helping students find and focus their strengths to prepare them for a successful future.
###

###