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Thur. Feb 23, 6:00-8:00pm, Cohen Lounge Over the course of 130 years, Italian American Catholics in New York City have developed a varied repertoire of devotional art and architecture to create community-based sacred spaces in their homes and neighborhoods. These spaces exist outside of but in relationship to the consecrated halls of local parishes and are sites of worship in conventionally secular locations. Such ethnic building traditions and urban ethnic landscapes have long been neglected by all but a few scholars. Joseph Sciorra\u2019s\u00a0Built with Faith\u00a0<\/em>offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City\u2019s Italian American Catholics. Program<\/strong><\/p>\n Resources<\/strong>
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\nSciorra spent thirty-five years researching these community art forms and interviewing Italian immigrant and U.S.-born Catholics. By documenting the folklife of this group, Sciorra reveals how Italian Americans in the city use expressive culture and religious practices to transform everyday urban space into unique,\u00a0communal sites of ethnically infused religiosity. The folk aesthetics practiced by individuals within their communities are integral to understanding how art is conceptualized, implemented, and esteemed outside of museum and gallery walls. Yard shrines, sidewalk altars, Nativitypresepi<\/em>, Christmas house displays, a stone-studded grotto, and neighborhood processions\u2014often dismissed as kitsch or prized as folk art\u2014all provide examples of the vibrant and varied ways contemporary Italian Americans use material culture, architecture, and public ceremonial display to shape the city\u2019s religious and cultural landscapes.
\nWritten in an accessible style that will appeal to general readers and scholars alike, Sciorra\u2019s unique study contributes to our understanding of how value and meaning are reproduced at the confluences of everyday life.<\/p>\n\n
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\nJoseph Sciorra<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a> is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College (City University of New York). He conceptualizes and implements scholarly research and public programs including symposiums, the Institute\u2019s annual conference, the monthly\u00a0Writers Read<\/em>\u00a0author series, the\u00a0Documented Italians<\/em>\u00a0film and video series, and the \u201cPhilip V. Cannistraro Seminar Series in Italian American Studies,\u201d as well as curates exhibitions. Sciorra received his Ph.D. from the Department of Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania. As a folklorist, he researches and publishes on vernacular culture, including religious practices, cultural landscapes, and popular music, among other topics. He is the editor of\u00a0Italian Folk: Vernacular Culture in Italian-American Lives<\/em>\u00a0and co-editor of\u00a0Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women\u2019s Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora. He is the author of\u00a0the book Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City<\/a>\u00a0(University of Tennessee Press, 2015) and\u00a0R.I.P.: Memorial Wall Art<\/a>\u00a0(Henry Holt & Co., 1994; Thames and Hudson, 2002).<\/em><\/p>\n\n
\nItalian D\u00e9cor Rooted in Pottery<\/a>\u00a0(New York Times, June 11, 2014)
\n<\/strong>Away in a Manger in the South Bronx<\/a>\u00a0(New York Times, Dec. 17, 2008)<\/p>\n