My introduction to the American Italian Historical Association (AIHA) started with a conversation with John Paul Russo, professor and chair, Department of Classics, the University of Miami, in 2003. As a graduate student in the English Department, I embarked on a quest to finalize my dissertation topic. Russo recommended that I read Don DeLillo's Underworld (1997), which I did. The text changed my way of thinking about contemporary American literature. Over several months of talking with Russo and Robert Casillo, I settled on an interdisciplinary theme of waste in fiction, film, and poetry. My goal was to select notable Italian Americans’ texts and films to analyze within the lens of waste in twentieth-century cinema and literature. I opted to focus on DeLillo's mega-novel and Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006). Unable to decide on an Italian American poet to complement DeLillo and Scorsese's works, I chose A....
The Italian American Studies Association at Fifty-Five: 1966–2021
ALAN J. GRAVANO is assistant professor and director of the Writing Center at Rocky Mountain University. He is a former MLA Delegate Assembly member (2017–2020) and the Italian American Studies Association president. He serves on the MLA Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession (2018–2021, chair 2020–21). Gravano has had three MLA special topics accepted: “Italian Americans on Screen” in Chicago (2019), “Italian Americans on the Page” in Seattle (2020), and “Queering Italian Diasporic Visions: Expanding Gender Identit(ies)” in Toronto (2021). He hopes to follow up Italian Americans on Screen: Challenging the Past, Re-Theorizing the Future (Lexington Books, 2020) with Italian Americans on the Page: Re-Reading the Classics and Examining Underexplored Subjects (under review). More recently, he contributed a chapter, “Reassessing the Topography of New York City in Don DeLillo's Fiction,” to Don DeLillo in Context (Cambridge UP, forthcoming 2021).
ALEXANDRA DE LUISE is associate librarian for research and instructional services at Queens College, the City University of New York, where in addition to overseeing reference and instruction efforts, she serves as liaison for the Italian, French, and modern Greek departments, as well as the Italian American Program. She has master's degrees in art history and in library science from Rutgers University. Her Italian American–related publications include articles in Italian Americana and Revisions: A Journal of Writing, an essay in What is Italian America? (Italian American Studies Association, 2015), as well as a book review in VIA: Voices in Italian Americana. Her writing interests concern early literacy, multicultural and social practices in libraries, and Italian American acculturation. She served until recently as chair of the Association to Reunite Italian Americans (ARIA), a faculty and staff organization at Queens College, and she has organized Italian American–related events at the college. Since joining the Italian American Studies Association in 2010, she has both presented yearly at its conferences and has held several board positions.
Alan J. Gravano, Alexandra de Luise; The Italian American Studies Association at Fifty-Five: 1966–2021. Diasporic Italy: Journal of the Italian American Studies Association 1 January 2021; 1 103–123. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/27697738.1.1.103
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