The gangster, in the hands of the Italian American artist, becomes a telling figure in the tale of American race, gender, and ethnicity - a figure that reflects the autobiography of an immigrant group just as it reflects the fantasy of a native population. From Wiseguys to Wise Men studies the figure of the gangster and explores its social function in the construction and projection of masculinity in the United States. By looking at the cultural icon of the gangster through the lens of gender, this book presents new insights into material that has been part of American culture for close to 100 years.
Leaving Little Italy explores the various forces that have shaped and continue to mold Italian American culture. Early chapters offer a historical survey of major developments in Italian American culture, from the early mass immigration period to the present day, situating these developments within the larger framework of American culture as a whole. Subsequent chapters examine particular works of Italian American literature and film from a variety of perspectives, including literary history, gender, social class, autobiography, and race. Paying particular attention to how the individual artist's personality has intersected with community in the shaping of Italian American culture, the book reveals how and why Italian America was invented and why Little Italys must ultimately disappear.
Penfield Books showcases Italian Touches: Recipes and Traditions by Fred L. Gardaphe. Italian Touches incorporates Italian contributors: Mary Beth (Menna) Specht, Joeann (La Sorella) Tesar, David Wright, Don Fiore, Joseph Sciorra, PhD, and Jerome Krase, PhD, to explore Italian ways and traditions. Between 1870 and 1924, twelve million Italians left their native land. Nearly half of them came to America, seeking a new life that would be better than the grinding poverty of southern Italy. Now almost sixteen million Americans claim Italian descent with the third, fourth, and fifth generations of Italian Americans retaining many of the values and the charm of their grandparents and great-grandparents. Theirs is a noble heritage. In terms of history, art, architecture, literature, and triumphs of the human soul, the Italian experience has been an inspiration to the western world. Italian Touches covers the Italian greats in history, religion, writers, literature, Italian American Organizations, the arts, architecture, dancing, film, theater, and more. Essays by Gardaphe include poignant writing about his Italian mother and father. Gardaphe is a distinguished professor of literature in New York. This book is a revision with updated and additional text from the title, Italian American Ways, released by HarperCollins about thirty years ago. Fred Gardaphe describse the rich family traditions and celebrations in such great detail you can almost smell the sauce steam rising from the page. One such family gathering, his Uncle plucked a meatball with his thumb and forefinger from Grandma's cooking pot in the kitchen. He walked back to the living room devouring the meatball with a sauce stained white shirt. When Fred tried the same, his Grandma emerged from the pantry and bounced a colander against his head and spouted, "Don't be a porco. We gonna eat now. The pasta she ready." Sixty-seven pages of delicious mouth-watering Italian family favorite recipes are included.
Since 1987, writer and critic Fred Gardaphé has regularly reviewed Italian/North American literature in Fra Noi, an Italian/American monthly newspaper based in Chicago. This volume features the best of 'Parole Scritte', his monthly columns. Introduced by an essay from which the collection gets its title, Dagoes Read is the first publication of its kind in the history of Italian/North American literature. It serves as a fine introduction to this literary movement as well as a survey of recent publications by Italian/North Americans. Works reviewed include those by Tony Ardiaone, Dorothy Bryant, Pietro di Donato, John Fante, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Frank Lentricchia, Jay Parini, Diane Raptosh, Gay Talese, Sal LaPuma, and many others.
While this figure has been a part of American literature since even before Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it has only been with the revolution in cinema, and the work of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese that the figure of the gangster has been humanized and disseminated on a large scale. Gardaphe investigates the role of the gangster in their films, as well as the literature of such great Italian American writers as Mario Puzo and Gay Talese. By looking at the cultural icon of the gangster through the lens of gender and masculinity From Wiseguys to Wise Men presents new insights into material that has been part of American culture for close to 100 years.
Fiction. A collection of newspaper columns written over a four-year span, MOUSTACHE PETE IS DEAD is an insightfully keen look into the world of the Italian immigrant. Through Pete's words, we come to understand the difficulties many immigrants and their progeny have often had in order to negotiate the dominant culture's misunderstanding of the immigrant's culture of origin. MOUSTACHE PETE IS DEAD calls for the birth of a smooth partnership between these two different cultures.
Leaving Little Italy explores the various forces that have shaped and continue to mold Italian American culture. Early chapters offer a historical survey of major developments in Italian American culture, from the early mass immigration period to the present day, situating these developments within the larger framework of American culture as a whole. Subsequent chapters examine particular works of Italian American literature and film from a variety of perspectives, including literary history, gender, social class, autobiography, and race. Paying particular attention to how the individual artist's personality has intersected with community in the shaping of Italian American culture, the book reveals how and why Italian America was invented and why Little Italys must ultimately disappear.
Since 1987, writer and critic Fred Gardaphé has regularly reviewed Italian/North American literature in Fra Noi, an Italian/American monthly newspaper based in Chicago. This volume features the best of 'Parole Scritte', his monthly columns. Introduced by an essay from which the collection gets its title, Dagoes Read is the first publication of its kind in the history of Italian/North American literature. It serves as a fine introduction to this literary movement as well as a survey of recent publications by Italian/North Americans. Works reviewed include those by Tony Ardiaone, Dorothy Bryant, Pietro di Donato, John Fante, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Frank Lentricchia, Jay Parini, Diane Raptosh, Gay Talese, Sal LaPuma, and many others.
The gangster, in the hands of the Italian American artist, becomes a telling figure in the tale of American race, gender, and ethnicity - a figure that reflects the autobiography of an immigrant group just as it reflects the fantasy of a native population. From Wiseguys to Wise Men studies the figure of the gangster and explores its social function in the construction and projection of masculinity in the United States. By looking at the cultural icon of the gangster through the lens of gender, this book presents new insights into material that has been part of American culture for close to 100 years.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.