Queering Italian Americana

Queering Italian Americana
Creative Voices, Academic Reflections, New Directions

A Day of Study

Born out of the Tiro a Segno graduate seminar entitled “Queering the Italian American Bildungsroman,” this event will showcase the graduate students’s final projects from the course. Additionally, it will feature four queer Italian American authors, and invite them to read from their works. Two Italian American scholars will deliver papers on literary and media considerations of queer Italian American topics.

The event will conclude with Dr. Ryan Calabretta-Sajder’s Tiro a Segno lecture.

In ENGLISH

Schedule:

4:00
Graduate Student Presentations
– Teagan Cocozza O’Hara
“Queer Utopia, Trauma, Performativity: An Exploration of Becoming Known in Italian American Literature”
– Ci Brauer
“(Masc)querade: Maschilismo’s Influence on Gender Exploration Among Queer Italian Americans”
– Scott Kapuscinski
“Language of the Soul: Linguistic Plurality in Queer Italain American Writing”
– Karina Wu Fung
“Kinship, Identity, and the Queer Other: Negotiating Dissonance and Happiness in Italian American and Black Narratives”
– Julia Crawford
“Queer Temporality through the Queer Italian American Memoir Genre”
– Logan Carey
“Harbingers of Disease and Destruction: The Italian American Immigrant and the Gay Migrant in 20 th Century New York”

5:30
– Break –

5:40
Creative Writers Read (Session 1)
Frank Spinelli, Pee Shy
Frank Avella, FROCI
Followed by Q&A

6:25
Eilis Kierans, Penn State University
“Lesbian Memoirs: Food, Fathers, and Feminisms in the Diasporic Kitchen”

6:45
Creative Writers Read (Session 2)
Nicole Santalucia, The Book of Dirt & current poetry
Peter Covino, Cut Off the Ears of Winter & current poetry
Followed by Q&A

7:30
Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, Tiro a Segno Lecture
“On Robert Ferro: Performativity, Trauma, & Affect”

Authors will be selling their works and signing books