From the Editor

Abstract

I am happy to share the second volume of Diasporic Italy: Journal of the Italian American Studies Association. We have been working on this volume since the inaugural issue went to press. In the past year, IASA hosted a hybrid conference in November 2021 at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute and its first-ever IASA-sponsored guaranteed session at the Modern Language Assocation's Convention in January 2022. The contributions to this volume represent research presented in these venues and others completely independent of IASA. We warmly welcome all contributions for future numbers.This second volume is divided into six sections: The Italian Diaspora Redux, Literary Perspectives, Historical Considerations, Pedagogical Approaches, Diaspora in Translation, and Documenting the Italian Diaspora. These areas reflect the mission of the journal and its goal to explore the Italian diaspora(s) from an interdisciplinary perspective. We are excited to have a pedagogy piece, a translation, and an interview to compliment more traditional modes of study. We are confident that these diverse avenues of inquiry will better enhance our knowledge and understanding, incorporating intersectional aspects of the personal, professional, and scholarly.This volume provides a wide-ranging approach to Italian diaspora studies; it opens with a special section entitled “The Italian Diaspora Redux,” born out of a discussion following the session dedicated to launching Diasporic Italy at the IASA conference in November 2021. William Boelhower introduced the idea during the question-and-answer section of our panel, and the associate editors and I thought it would be a great way to initiate a philosophical discourse. We invited each advisory board member to participate. In the end, three colleagues contributed reflections on what the Italian diaspora means to them and a bit of the future for the field of study. Many thanks to Bill Boelhower, Fred L. Gardaphe, and Anthony Julian Tamburri for finding the time to contemplate the meaning of diaspora for Italy. I hope their inquiries challenge certain concepts of “diaspora” and “migration” and fuel future debate both within the pages of the journal and in the field at large.Beyond that section, we have two articles that focus on literary studies. Lidia Radi's “Trading Female Bodies: The Unbearable Lightness of Prejudice in Sole bruciato by Elvira Dones” explores issues of prejudice and sex-trafficking of Albanian women in Italy in the Albanian author's novel. In “Carefully Considered? Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl (2009) and Embodied Representation,” Lisa DeTora analyzes identity politics in Italian American speculative fiction through challenging notions of gender and race. Alan Perry, in turn, examines reflective writing by Italian World War II POW non-collaborators held at Camp Hereford (Texas) and collaborators at Letterkenny Army Depot (Pennsylvania).In our section “Pedagogical Approaches,” Olivia Kate Cerrone, Kathy Curto, and Julia Lisella consider various methodological techniques and projects to represent Italian American studies within a multiethnic syllabus in their piece “Integrating Italian American Literature into the Multiethnic Syllabus,” including the significance of having students creatively write as part of the course. Anne Greott contributed our first translation, that of The Other Barack, authored by Julio Monteiro Martins, a Brazilian-born writer who spent his last twenty years teaching his mother tongue, Portuguese, at the University of Pisa. The final contribution, “Voices Beyond the Mainstream: Interview with Italian Canadian Writers Caterina Edwards, Antonio D'Alfonso, and Pasquale Verdicchio” by Francesca Ferrari, investigates the creation of an early Italian Canadian canon and charts the creation of Guernica Editions as well as the Association of Italian Canadian Writers (AICW), which is fitting as we expand the scope beyond Italians within the confines of the US.Many thanks to our authors, editors, and reviewers for their continued support of the journal. The reviewers in particular continue to amaze me with their speed, attention to detail, and suggestions.In closing, I want to invite you to urge your college or university library to subscribe to Diasporic Italy.Buona lettura!