Italian Diaspora Studies Association is pleased to launch a new residential program dedicated to the topic of Writing in Cultural Heritage and Memory. It will take place from May 15th to May 29th, 2019. Hotels are located in Morano Calabro (CS), in the National Park of Mount Pollino, in the first week, and in the second week in Albidona (CS), on the Ionian Coast, with several planned field trips in the surrounding areas of Calabria and Lucania, including a day-trip in Matera, European Capital of Culture 2019.

Although workshops and seminars are offered by leading writers and scholars, this is not a typical academic program. It is open to anyone interested in learning and writing about the Italian diaspora in the world and about Italy, and to visit the places of the emigrants’ departures, immersing oneself in an all-encompassing experience, including the sensory, in the real and cultural spaces of South Italy. In a bilingual context, participants will share ideas and emotions regarding their experience and awareness of Italian Diaspora through memories, writings and readings. The principal workshop will be conducted by Maria Mazziotti Gillan.

Calabria-Lucania, May 15-29, 2019

Have you ever wanted to write your history or the history of your family, sifting through childhood memories, digging into your roots and past lives of people close to you? Have you ever started a writing project of any type, but could not complete? Are you intrigued by the study of origins and the phenomenon of mass diaspora in the world? Have ever wanted to explore hidden parts of South Italy and its rich culture, and to learn more about the Italian diaspora?

Whether you are of Italian origin or not, this program offers you an incomparable opportunity to sojourn in Calabria and Lucania to live a unique experience than will enhance your life, enrich your culture and stimulate your creativity.

A bilingual text on Calabria written for our program by Italian Canadian poet Corrado Paina.

Like monoliths from beyond time, the badlands look at the conquerors landing. Even here in Calabria there is a story of an ancient people, broken, divided, ravaged. An exploited land that has the face of the thirsty torrent.

The anger of the ones who have been dispossessed, of who was forced to leave has the sound of the roar of the winter waves.

Nostos is the summer, the warmth of discovery, the invention of identity.

And with the nostos, the mountain rejoins the sea, and Calabria becomes the land of people.

We all come back to Calabria sooner or later, and the return is familiar even to one who comes here for the first time.

Because Calabria is the beginning of everything.

And in Calabria the refugees, the stowaways, the emigrants, the travelers, the passengers, the immigrants become the Mediterranean.

It is a circular story of people that go. People that come.

An ancient kingdom that no diaspora can destroy.

The Italian Diaspora Studies Association, in conjunction with the Department of Humanities at the University of Calabria (Rende, CS, Italy), with the support of the U.S. Consulate General of Naples, and in association with “Paul and Ann Rubino Endowed Professorship in Italian American Studies” at Loyola University, Chicago (ILL, USA), has launched a new residential writing program dedicated to the topic of “Heritage and Memory”. With the Patronages of the Canadian Embassy of Rome, the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal (CA), and the Italian American Studies Association (IASA), the program will take place from May 15th to May 29th, 2019. The first week is held in Morano Calabro (CS), in the National Park of Mount Pollino; the second week in Albidona (CS), on the northern Ionian Coast of Calabria, with several planned field trips in the surrounding areas of Calabria and Basilicata, including a day-trip in Matera, European Capital of Culture 2019.

Directors

Master Workshop

with Maria Mazziotti Gillan

The Power of the Past: Writing Poetry to Save Your Life

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is winner of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP, the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That LiesBetween Us. She is the Founder/Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College, editor of the Paterson Literary Review, and starting September 2018, has been appointed a Bartle Professor at Binghamton University—SUNY and Professor Emerita of English and creative writing. She has published 23 books, including What Blooms in Winter (NYQ Books, 2016) and Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets (Cat in the Sun Books, 2014).

Guest speakers

Rabbi Barbara Aiello • Hiding in Plain Sight - Searching for and Finding Calabria's Secret Jewish Traditions

Rabbi Barbara Aiello, born in Pittsburgh (PA, USA), is Italy's first woman rabbi. In 2006, she founded the first active synagogue in Calabria in 500 years.
(Her seminar is sponsored by the Foundation for Italian Diaspora Studies, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

Maurizio Igor Meta • Ellis Island

Maurizio Igor Meta is author, actor, performer and film maker.

Michela Baldo • Translation as return and restitution. The translation of Italian-Canadian writing into Italian

Michela Baldo is honorary fellow in Translation Studies at the University of Hull. Her researche revolves around the written and audio-visual translation into Italian of Italian-Canadian works.

Florinda Fusco • Poetry Reading

Florinda Fusco is poet, performer, translator and literary critic. Her poems have been translated into English, French and Spanish.