<\/a>Letter from the Editor<\/h2>\nCarla A. Simonini<\/h3>\n
Dear Readers,<\/p>\n
I am very proud to bring you the Summer 2020 issue of Italian Americana<\/em>. As has been the case all over the United States, our ability to work was greatly affected by the COVID-19 crisis, which, among other things, precluded me from using the resources normally available at Loyola University Chicago. Despite a number of setbacks, though, we still managed to come together as a team, and each of our editors has curated high quality selections offering diverse perspectives on Italian-American scholarship and creative endeavors. Readers will note that our opening section\u2014featuring an interview, a personal essay, and two scholarly articles\u2014focuses on Italy, specifically Southern Italy, Il Mezzogiorno<\/em>, from which the greatest percentage of Italians emigrated to the US during the great wave of immigration from the 1890s through the 1920s. The editorial selection of these pieces aims to highlight how the history, culture, and traditions of Southern Italy remain relevant to our explorations of identity in the twenty-first century. Joan Leotta opens the issue with a follow-up interview with Stephen Sartarelli, the award-winning translator whose masterful translations have made the complex linguistical forms and culturally nuanced themes of the Montalbano detective novels by Sicilian writer Andrea Camilleri accessible to an English readership. Leotta catches up with Sartarelli to find out how the prolific author\u2019s passing last year has fans and critics reflecting on his legacy, but Sartarelli poses his own question at the end of his interview. He wonders whether there has been any sort of identification with Camilleri\u2019s world and characters on the part of Italian Americans, especially those of Sicilian descent. In response I can offer a personal anecdote. When I was invited to speak at a Sicilian American cultural group last spring and chose the topic of Andrea Camilleri\u2019s Montalbano detective novels, I was enthusiastically received and asked many questions about Camileri\u2019s use of the Sicilian dialect and the process of translating them\u2014and the cultural context which they represent\u2014into English. This group, at least, was vested in exploring their relationship to their Sicilian origins and saw Camilleri\u2019s work as a vehicle for doing so.<\/p>\nLeotta follows her interview with a personal essay, exploring how her reading of Camilleri led her to Tindari, a town of Greek origin on the northeastern coast of Sicily best known as the site of the sanctuary dedicated the \u201cBlack Madonna,\u201d a wooden statue that dates back to the ninth century. Tindari became an important pilgrim destination in Sicily in the middle ages, and remains so today. Veneration of \u201cThe Black Madonna\u201d was so important that Sicilian immigrants brought the tradition with them to New York in the early twentieth century. Knowing the town\u2019s history, it is perhaps not too surprising that Leotta\u2019s visit to Tindari enables her to uncover parts of her own family story.<\/p>\n
Our two scholarly articles deal with cultural traditions in Sicily and Apulia, respectively. Joseph Russo examines a particularly enigmatic story that is included in Giuseppe Pitr\u00e8\u2019s collection of Sicilian folk tales, first published in 1875. Through Russo\u2019s article, the reader is familiarized with not only the specific story being examined, but also the various genres into which the works can be categorized\u2014tales, proverbs, legends, anecdotes, etc.\u2014and how they collectively exemplify cultural norms and beliefs. Russo\u2019s analysis proceeds from a revised English translation of Pitr\u00e8\u2019s tale, which leads in turn to a new interpretation, not unlike the transformation that can take place when Sicilian folk traditions are transposed through the immigration experience. Featured poet John Bargowski\u2019s essay reflects this phenomenon as he reminisces fondly about how his Italian immigrant relatives \u201crelated their tales to a rapt audience of family and friends.\u201d The tradition of story-telling sustained them, and he writes, \u201cDuring these challenging days, it was particularly comforting to hear some of those old stories again. . . Many had a seed of wisdom and common sense street- smarts buried under the sometimes-rough surface.\u201d<\/p>\n
Celia Caputi, for her part, offers a feminist analysis of \u201ctarantism\u201d and the manner in which it has been studied. Beginning with Ernesto De Martino\u2019s ground breaking study The Land of Remorse<\/em>, Caputi goes on to examine 1970s\u2019 analyses by French feminists of the \u201ctarantate\u201d (women affected with tarantism), the rise of \u201cneotarantism\u201d in the twenty-first century, and her own complicated relationship with the syndrome and its meaning as she approaches it from the dual perspective of a feminist and a person of southern Italian ancestry. Caputi notes how tarantism is a distinctly southern Italian phenomenon, most often associated with the region of Apulia. Thought to be caused by the bite of a spider, the malady\u2019s only known cure was to engage in the ritual dance known as the Tarantella, a version of which still today is often played at Italian-American celebrations. What the happy tune masks in its American manifestation are the oppressive social conditions that induced the \u201ctarantate\u2019s\u201d affliction (women were the vast majority) in Southern Italy, which were rooted in patriarchal structures designed to suppress women\u2019s agency, especially with regard to their sexuality. These historical conditions emerge in Nancy Carnevale\u2019s memoir \u201cLa Corona,\u201d which offers a poignant view of how Southern Italian cultural norms regarding male and female relationships and codes of behavior had tragic consequences for her aunt, who immigrated to the US as a toddler in the 1950s.<\/p>\nOur turn towards Italy is completed in our Book Review section. While we often publish reviews in English of books written in Italian, this time we have a review of an Italian translation of a work by an American writer, written in Italian. Gigliola Nocera of the University of Catania brings us an insightful review of Daniela Daniele\u2019s recent translation of Louisa May Alcott\u2019s story Enigmi <\/em>(\u201cEnigmas\u201d), which Alcott originally published anonymously in the popular publication Frank Leslie\u2019s Illustrated Newspaper <\/em>in May 1864. The translation introduces Italian readers to Alcott\u2019s lesser known engagement with the genre of detective stories and thrillers, while Nocera\u2019s review gives readers of Italian Americana <\/em>a chance to brush up on their Italian while engaging in a critical evaluation of the story and its translation.<\/p>\nAll of the sections in the Summer 2020 are very strong. In addition to his opening essay, featured poet John Bargowski\u2019s poems are sure to please, as are the other poems that our poetry editor, Maria Terrone, has selected. We are happy to feature some new voices, along with more established ones, to create a diverse group of poems. In our Fiction and Creative Nonfiction section, editor Christine Palamidessi has curated a trio of works that complement each other in tone and theme, from the distinctly masculine voice of Mike Dell\u2019Aquila\u2019s story \u201cExotic Bets,\u201d to the somber feminine motif of Nancy Carnevale\u2019s \u201cLa Corona,\u201d and finally to the nostalgic and humorous strains of Edward Iannuccilli\u2019s \u201cMom and Her Sisters Never Separated.\u201d Completing the issue, John Paul Russo has once again brought together over a dozen different book reviews of works representing diverse genres and perspectives that hold in common themes and subject matters that are likely to be of interest to anyone seeking to further explore the connections between Italian and American culture.<\/p>\n
My heartfelt thanks goes out to all the section editors\u2014John Paul Russo, Maria Terrone and Christina Palamadessi\u2014and special gratitude to our amazing editorial assistant Tom Slagle. We always work \u201cat a distance,\u201d but this spring posed far greater challenges than any of us could have imagined. I am grateful to everyone on the editorial team, without whose dedication and creativity this issue would never have made it to press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Table of Contents Letter from the Editor………………………………………………………………… v Notes on Contributors………………………………………………………………. ix Interview and Essay Stephen Sartarelli\u2014Catching Up Joan Leotta………………………………………………………………….. 105 Essay: An Excursion to Tindari Joan Leotta………………………………………………………………….. 109 Articles Nonsense or Riddle? Elusive Genre in Giuseppe Pitr\u00e8\u2019s Sicilian Folktales Joseph Russo……………………………………………………………….. 115 A US Feminist in \u201cthe Land of Remorse\u201d: Re-considering the Southern Italian … <\/p>\n
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