| Publications [#8121] of Thomas J. Ferraro
Books
- Feeling Italian: the Art of Ethnicity in America. New York UP, May, 2005. (Winner, 2006 American Book Award. Choice, Recommended Book.)
(last updated on 2007/10/03)
Abstract: Feeling Italian: the Art of Ethnicity in
America
(NYU, December '04?) explores the Italian
Catholic
aesthetic seduction of the United States--
from the
once-infamous trials of murderess Maria
Barbella and the
eerily prescient city paintings of Joseph
Stella to latter-
day icons including Sinatra, Madonna, and
the Corleones--
yielding thereby not the wearily familiar
tale of racial
assimilation, How the Guineas Got White, but
a revelatory
counter-drama of ongoing ethnic
enculturation, How America
Gets (To Feel) Italian. The book consists of
ten
interlocking dramatic vignettes--each of
which is tightly
focused, historically contextualized, and
designed
as an analytic (re)enactment on one or
another cutting edge
of Cultural Studies (crime and captivity,
modern industrial
visuality, vocalized masculinity, diva
performativity, the
metaphysics of impersonation, the
intercourse of food).
Each chapter focuses on a major artist of
Italian
extraction or critical work of art with an
Italianate
articulation exemplifying "structures of
feeling"--social
intuition, sacred form, and aesthetic wisdom-
-heretofore
not-dreamt-of in our official philosophies.
The
overarching idea is to take the counsel of
Bruce
Springsteen's mother, pursuing her
insistence on both joy
and seriousness, seeking accessibility
without loss of
intellectual trenchancy or edginess, paying
witness to
lived (even embodied) difference but in a
way that speaks
to us all, of whatever background,
situation, or persuasion.
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