Week 1
Monday, Oct. 10: Reading: Fred L. Gardaphé’s “Introduction” to Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete
Tuesday, Oct. 11: Literature: Pietro Di Donato’s “Christ in Concrete” (908-18)
Wednesday, Oct. 12: Theory: Anthony Julian Tamburri’s “Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete: An Italian/American Novel Not Set in Stone”
Week 2
Monday, Oct. 17: John Fante’s “My Father’s God” & Dennis Barone’s “Rome If You Want
To: The Currency of John Fante’s Italy”
Tuesday, Oct. 18: Beat Poetry PowerPoints
Wednesday, Oct. 19: Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “The Old Italians Dying” & Clemens Spahr’s
“Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Global Poetics of Italian American Poetry”
Week 3
3 Italian American Beat Poets
Monday, Oct. 24: Philip Lamantia’s “Blue Grace” and other excerpts & Judy Norton’s
“Destroyed Works: Philip Lamnatia’s Excessive Subjectivities”
Blue Grace by Philip Lamantia | Poetry Foundation
Tuesday, Oct. 25: Gregory Corso “1959”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46371/1959
“Transformation & Escape” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46370/transformation-escape
Loni Reynolds’s “‘A Humane yet Dark Tribute to Life’: The Eucharist in the Work of Gregory Corso”
Wednesday, Oct. 26: Diane di Prima’s “April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa” & “Revolutionary Letter #9,” & Blossom S. Kirschenbaum’s “Diane di Prima: Extending La Famiglia”
Recommended: Roseanne Giannini Quinn’s “Laugh of the Revolutionary: Diane di Prima, French Feminist Philosophy, and the Contemporary Cult of the Beat Heroine”
Week 4
Monday, Oct. 31: Don DeLillo’s “Take the A Train” & Richard Dragan’s “Leaving the
Bronx: Depicting Urban Spaces in Don DeLillo’s ‘Baghdad Towers West’ and His Early Short Stories”
Tuesday, Nov. 1: NO CLASS All Saints Day
Wednesday, Nov. 2: Sandra Mortola Gilbert’s “Grandpa,” “Kissing the Bread,”
“Belongings,” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51832/belongings-56d22fd735e2a
“Leeks,” “Mafioso,” & Jacqueline Vaught Brogan’s “Narrative Stata in the Sonnet Sequence: Sandra M. Gilbert’s ‘Belonging’”
Week 5
Italian American Women Poets
Monday, Nov.7: Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s “Arturo,” “Growing up Italian,” & “Public School No. 18,” & Mary Ann Mannino’s “The Empowered and Empowering Grandmother in the Poetry of Italian/American Women”
Tuesday, Nov. 8: Maria Mazziotti Gillan’s “Daddy We Called You”
Wednesday, Nov. 9: Mary Jo Salter’s “Libretto” & “Dead Letters” & Jay Rogoff’s “The Aesthetics of Contemporary Sonnet Sequences: The Examples of Salter and Muldoon”
Week 6
Queer Spaces on Stage
Monday, Nov. 14: Steve Galluccio’s Mambo Italiano (play)
Tuesday, Nov. 15: Mambo Italiano (2003, dir. Émile Gaudreault)
Wednesday, Nov. 16: NO CLASS
Graphic Novel
Monday, Nov. 21: Excerpts of Robert and Shannon Tinnell’s Feast of the Seven Fishes (2005)
Tuesday, Nov. 22: Feast of the Seven Fishes (2018, dir. Robert Tinnell)
Wednesday, Nov. 23: Discuss Feast of the Seven Fishes
Week 7
Week 8
Shades of Black and White Space
Monday, Nov. 28: Excerpts from Kym Ragusa’s The Skin Between Us & Annarita Taronna’s
“Shaping Transcultural Ethnographies of Southernness: The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging by Kym Ragusa”
Tuesday, Nov. 29: Igiaba Scego’s “Sausages” & Federicca Angelini’s “Food and Identity in
Laila Wadia and Igiaba Scego” http://www.warscapes.com/retrospectives/food/sausages
Wednesday, Nov. 30: Excerpts of Peter Covino’s poetry
Week 9
Queer Contemporary Italian American/Canadian Poets
Monday, Dec. 5: Zoom with Nicole Santalucia
Tuesday, Dec. 6: Excerpts of Liana Canton Cusmano (Luca/BiCurious George)
Wednesday, Dec. 7: Zoom with Maria Giura and discuss excerpts of Celibate: A Memoir
Week 10
Monday, Dec. 12: Martin Scorsese’s Italianamerican
Tuesday, Dec. 13: Zoom with Janine Certo
Wednesday, Dec. 14: Course Wrap-Up
NB. The calendar may be subject to change as the professor adjusts the course content and pace of the screenings and readings.