3rd Annual Musco Italian Studies Lecture
On Oranges and Organ Grinders: California's Encounter with Italy and the Transnational Imagination of Culture, a lecture by Dr. Laura Ruberto

Dr. Laura Ruberto, Berkeley City College, author of Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women’s Work in Italy and the U.S. (2010), and numerous publications on cinema, immigration, labor, and the culture of food.

Thursday, May 5, 2011
1 p.m.—2 p.m. Hashinger Science Center 131

ABSTRACT: At the time of Italy’s unification there were more Italian immigrants living in California, itself a young state, than any other US state. This talk situates the history of Italy and California with this transnational relationship in mind, considering some of the ways the Western state’s cultural development has been formed by Italian immigrants and through concepts of italianità (“italianness”).

Through a critical reading of popular and commercial imagery this talk considers how western regional contexts came to shape ethnic identities and in turn how those identities influenced culture.

For more information, please contact Robert Buranello at 714.744.7846 or Buranello@chapman. edu