“ ”The Italian Diaspora Seminar was an unforgettable and deeply inspiring experience. Held in the heart of Southern Italy, it brought together an incredible community of scholars, artists, and local voices to explore the rich and complex stories of Italian migration. The combination of rigorous discussion, moving personal narratives, and immersive site visits created a powerful connection between past and present, between here and there.
What stood out most was the seminar’s commitment to bridging academic work with lived experience. It was intellectually stimulating, emotionally resonant, and beautifully organized. I left with new insights, meaningful connections, and a renewed sense of purpos in my work. I can’t recommend it highly enough!””
— Wanda Balzano, Founding Chair, Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Wake Forest University, USA
“The magic often found in setting conjured in words words words full of echoes.
Our ear attuned too well distorts the trek of language. Consider di-as-po-ra—scattered blown by winds of circumstance across the globe, perhaps is the only human condition in sync with the circularity of the universe. Italian migration, immigration, emigration, and generational roots crisscross oceans in search of place.
Professoressa Margherita Ganeri gives the condition its rightful name. Trauma. Italian Diaspora Studies applies the balm of knowledge in the community writers cloistered in panoramic splendor, feasted on Calabrian bounty, nourished on narrative.
Return! Return! Return! My mantra until next year. And do consider publication (insert journal title) of your work begun during your participation in the most inspirational writing seminars. Certainly by far I ever had the immense satisfaction of participating in.
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— Deborah Di Bari
““If you find yourself drawn to apply to the Italian Diaspora Studies Writing Seminar, I would encourage you to answer this call that has broken through the “everyday,” to fan the flame of your curious spirit. I attended in May 2025, and left astonished at the richness of the experience: the setting itself at the Grand Hotel San Michele, a Calabrian villa anchored by sea and birdsong and the most kind and attentive staff I had ever experienced; the colleagues who had come from around the world in search of both the personal and the historical meanings of diaspora, and who left as friends who had given and received so much through conversation and writing; the profound instruction and experience of writing, by our international teachers Clarke, Cribari, Riccio and Ganeri, that challenged our abilities and helped the ink flow, opening the soul; the select field trips to historical neighboring areas like Cetraro, Falconara, La Gardia Piemontese, and Paola, that enriched our understanding of the Italian diaspora via museums, hillside shrines, small towns, sanctuaries, and ports; and the unexpected discoveries each one of us made about our personal and ancestral experiences of diaspora, whether immigrant, or several generations removed. My own trip came shortly after my mother, beautiful immigrant from Trieste to the US, had died, and I will remain grateful for the deep connection with my roots that this seminar provided me.””
