"But, Is That Folklore?" Discussion + Q&A with Joseph Sciorra, PhD

Join us for aperitivo and discussion at the Calandra Institute as we unpack Dr. Sciorra's recent article, "The Development of Folklore Studies in Europe and the United States," followed by Q&A. This hybrid event will also be available via Zoom for those who can't make it in person (sorry, no virtual apertivo option!). A recording of the event will be made available later to all paid participants for on-demand viewing for a limited time. Tickets are $5.00 (plus fees) in advance, $10.00 at the door.

Dr. Sciorra’s online article “Folklore” is the latest addition to the Italian American Studies Open Syllabus created by Dr. Stefano Morello (CUNY). In this open access resource, Dr. Sciorra offers an overview of folklore studies as it pertains to the Italian diaspora in the United States. The first section provides a synopsis of the development of folklore studies in Europe and the United States, discussing notions of authenticity, nationalism, and an ethnographic approach to vernacular expressivity. The following section considers early documentation of Italian immigrant folklore during an era in which various folk practices like Catholic saint processions were looked down upon by the larger American society. The article concludes with a review of the burgeoning research on historical and contemporary folk practices, that range from the tarantella to social media memes. An extensive bibliography is provided.

Joseph Sciorra is the director of Academic and Cultural Programs at Queens College’s John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, a City University of New York research institute. Dr. Sciorra earned his PhD in Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania and has researched and published about religious practices, material culture, and popular music, among other topics. He is the editor of Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives (2011); coeditor of Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women’s Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora (2014), Neapolitan Postcards: The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject (2016), the two-volume collection New Italian Migrations to the United States (2017), and he is the author of Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (2015). He has published on Italian Americans’ shifting and diverse relationships to Columbus commemorations and monuments. Dr. Sciorra is active as a cultural worker and public intellectual. Toward that end, he has successfully nominated two examples of vernacular architecture—the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Grotto on Staten Island and the Lisanti Family Chapel in the Bronx—to the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places. In 2004, Dr. Sciorra organized the first annual gathering at the former site of the chapel to the Sicilian Black Madonna di Tindari in a gay bar, The Phoenix, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.