California State University, Long Beach Italian Studies

The George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies at California State University, Long Beach is committed to offering outstanding academic programs in Italian language, literature, and culture as well as Italian American literature and culture to prepare students for careers in the global arena where strong skills in Italian Studies are an asset for professional success. Founded through an Italian-American Community and University partnership, the George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies is equally committed to serving the cultural goals of these communities through events that present and interpret Italian and Italian-American culture.

Program Director: Clorinda Donato is the George L. Graziadio Chair of Italian Studies, Director of the Center for Global Romance Languages and Translation Studies, Professor of Italian and French, and Graduate and Undergraduate Advisor. Her research interests address eighteenth-century cultural studies, in particular in knowledge transfer and in prose narrative, as well as gender during the Enlightenment and book history. She also works on comparative Italian Latino Diasporas and the Italian American writer Adriana Trigiani. See the Graziadio website for her full cv.

Emory University, Italian Studies

Emory University offers a major and minor in Italian Studies within the French and Italian Department.  Students study Italian culture through Emory's interdisciplinary lens, which includes: interesting courses, events, some on specialized academic topics, as well as study abroad opportunities in Italy during the regular academic year and in the summer.

Program Director: Judy Raggi Moore is Professor of Pedagogy & Program Director, Italian Studies (Dottore in Lingua e Letteratura Moderne, Università degli Studi di Roma, 1980): Second language pedagogy and cultural studies; creator and designer of the Italian Virtual Class (I.V.C.) culture and second language acquisition method and author of the Italian Virtual Class, Chiavi di Lettura, (Emory University Office of Technology Transfer, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011); presents papers and conducts workshops on the topic of second language acquisition and teaching language through cultural studies; co-authored book chapter in Teaching Italian and Italian Culture (Cambridge Scholarly Press); director of study abroad semester and summer opportunities in Italy.

Florida Atlantic University, Italian Studies

The Program in Italian Studies is a modern, forward-looking program that has found a dignified place in the multicultural and interdisciplinary environment of the college, without losing its own identity and integrity. It has been supported by the notion that the relationship between Italy and its hitherto mostly European literary, cultural, linguistic-philosophical and historical contexts is a horizontal one. In this spirit, and as we cross the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the Italian program has striven to offer the kinds of courses that reflect Italy as part of the mappa mundi and encourages and integrates course work in other languages and disciplines.

Our Italian Program has been honored with several prestigious awards:

• Dr. Myriam Ruthenberg won two university-wide teaching awards, a University Faculty Talon Award, and in 2007 she was knighted by the Republic of Italy
• Dr. Ilaria Serra won the 2020 and 2012 University Scholar of the Year Award and was honored by the Italo American Cultural Society "for her dediction to Italian Studies" in 2019

  
  The Italian Program currently has "memoranda of understanding" with the University of Roma 3, the American University in Rome, and the University of Macerata. 

  We also have an agreement of cooperation with the University of Piemonte Orientale through the Network of Autonomous schools of the Region of Piemonte.
  
  Offers both Undergrad and grad coursework.

Hofstra University, Italian Studies and Italian American Studies

Hofstra University offers a minor in Italian studies or Italian American studies. Coursework in Romance Languages and Literatures and History Departments are enriched by: outstanding faculty; two study abroad programs; the annual Italian Experience Festival in September, and the Italian American Experience Lecture Series, under the leadership of the Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor in Italian and Italian American Studies.

Stanislao Pugliese is is Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor in Italian and Italian American Studies.  He is a former research fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia University, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Oxford University, Harvard University and the inaugural Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation fellow at the Istituto Campano per la Storia della Resistenza in Naples.. In 2005, the Association of Italian American Educators named him College Professor of the Year.

Indiana University, Bloomington, Italian Studies

The program encompasses a major and minor degree in Italian. The undergraduate program combines an interesting selection of courses, relevant cultural activities, award opportunities and summer/semester/yearly programs for study abroad in Italy.  For more information, contact Professor Colleen Ryan. Students can apply to continue on to the program (or apply after obtaining degrees elsewhere) for Graduate Studies in Italian. For more information, contact Professor Marco Arnaudo.

Colleen Ryan has taught courses across the curriculum at IU from the basic language sequence and Italian and Italian American culture courses in translation, to graduate courses on foreign language teaching methods, advanced courses in gender studies, courses on contemporary Italian and Italian American film and literature, and theater workshops including a variety of performances and productions. From 2007 until 2014, Colleen served as Director of Language Instruction for Italian and since 2015, she has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies for Italian.

John Carroll University, Italian Studies

Knowledge of Italian is fundamental for those who embrace a career in the humanities and the social sciences, especially in art history, literature, history, music, linguistics, education and international relations.  It is also useful for those who plan a career in various technological fields, in business administrations and in many other professional fields. The study abroad program offers undergraduate students the opportunity to study in Vatican City while earning John Carroll University credits.

Santa Casciani is Professor of Italian language and literature at John Carroll. She has developed undergraduate courses dealing with Italian and Italian American issues. She has published extensively in Italian literature, including work focused on authors such as Dante and Michelangelo. She is also the Director of the Bishop Anthony M. Pilla Program in Italian American Studies at John Carroll University.

Lehman College, Italian-American Studies

The Program in Italian-American Studies is an interdisciplinary major that focuses on Italian-American experiences as they relate to both the Italian and American contexts. The program provides the student with the opportunity to investigate the social, cultural, psychological, historical, and esthetic dimensions of the Italian-American experience. The Major in Italian-American Studies offers an area of specialization for students who plan graduate training in ethnic studies, and for those who expect to teach in urban areas where there are large numbers of Italian-Americans.

For those students who will pursue advanced degrees in the arts, the humanities, or in the various social and behavioral sciences, a major in both the field of their choice and in Italian-American Studies, a dual major, permits a specialty within the academic discipline. The curriculum has practical applicability to teaching at all levels, and to the service-oriented professions (medicine, psychology, social work, law, etc.). A dual major is required of all students majoring in Italian-American Studies except those preparing to qualify for a provisional certificate in education. In most instances, 12 credits from the second major may serve as part of the Italian-American studies major as well (see outline of requirements below).

In consultation with a member of the Italian-American Studies Committee, each student will formulate an individual program of study, without reference to traditional departmental fields. The program thus offers the opportunity to investigate those features of Italian-American culture that match student interests. Special courses emphasizing research and critical thought, such as seminars and tutorials taught by participating faculty, will be provided to synthesize the work of each student in the major.

Alexandra Coller received her B.A. in Romance Languages (French and Italian) from Hunter College (CUNY) and her doctoral degree from New York University. At Lehman, she serves as the Italian Program Coordinator, the faculty advisor for the Italian Club; in addition, she organizes and presents the Italian Film Series in an effort to ensure that the Italian program forms an integral part of campus life. For the last five years, she has served as a member of the College’s Arts and Humanities Curriculum Committee and continues to serve as a member of the Arts Committee. Dr. Coller represents Lehman College at various cultural institutes around the metropolitan area (at NYU’s Casa Italiana, Columbia University’s Italian Academy, and the Italian Cultural Institute). Recently, in collaboration with New York City Opera, Dr. Coller organized and hosted a trip to Lincoln Center to see Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Her first book, Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy is in press (Routledge, 2017). In addition, Dr. Coller is the editor and translator of two volumes of Italian women’s pastoral drama from the early seventeenth-century for The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe Series (Toronto), forthcoming in 2017 and 2018. Dr. Coller is currently at work on her second book, Women and Letterati in Italian Dialogues and Treatises of the Late Renaissance (forthcoming, 2020).

Maria Grazia DiPaolo, Professor Emeritus

Loyola University, Chicago, Italian American Studies

An interdisciplinary Minor focusing on the history and impact of Italian migration to the Americas

In fall of 2018, Loyola University Chicago’s College of Arts and Sciences launched a new program: Italian American Studies. The program’s inauguration was the culmination of a five-year fund-raising campaign, the proceeds of which were matched by the university, providing for the endowment of the Paul and Ann Rubino Professorship and the establishment of a Minor in Italian American Studies.

Students who pursue a Minor in Italian American Studies will learn about the political, cultural and historical conditions that have precipitated waves migration from Italy, and the ways that Italian culture has developed and continues to take shape in the context of the Americas, with an emphasis on the Chicagoland area. The broad interdisciplinary focus of the program allows students to explore the Italian American experience through diverse fields of investigation, including history, literature, cinema, politics, music, popular culture, criminal justice and the social sciences.  By studying the specifics of the Italian American experience the program also aims to provide students with a framework for making connections with other American groups, and for addressing questions related to assimilation, identity, gender, race, class and religion that continue to inform contemporary discourse on immigration.

Program Director: Carla Simonini

Montclair State University, Italian and Italian American Studies

Montclair State University offers an undergraduate major and minor in Italian.   Through a major gift of Lawrence R. Inserra Jr and with the support of UNICO National and individual donors, the Theresa and Lawrence R. Endowed Chair was created. Besides the development of research activities and educational initiatives for the students, the Inserra Chair presents a regular series of free cultural programs that serve both MSU students and faculty and the residents of the NY/NJ area at large. Since 2011, major artists and scholars from Italy and the U.S. have presented shows, lectures, exhibits, films, dance performances, etc. on a wide array of Italian/Italian American themes (the Humanistic Legacy; Migrations; Futurism; Slow Food) in disciplines as diverse as visual arts, film, theater, music, fashion, art history, design, nutrition, and history

Program Director: Teresa Fiore holds the Inserra Endowed Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies,* and serves as Associate Professor of Italian in the Department of Spanish and Italian. Her teaching and research interests include 19th, 20th and 21st century Italian literature, Italian cinema and Italian American culture.  Her latest book is, Pre-Occupied Spaces: Italy’s Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies (Fordham UP, 2017).

Purdue University, Italian Studies

The Italian program offers language (levels I-VI), literature, film, and culture courses. It offers an interdisciplinary major in Italian Studies as part of the IDIS Program, in conjunction with courses from the School of Languages and Cultures, Visual and Performing Arts, and History. The School of Languages and Cultures also offers a minor in Italian.

Benjamin Lawton is Associate Professor of Italian, Interim Director of Film & Video Studies, and Chair of Italian Studies. He teaches at Purdue University and writes about cultural construction in cinema. Translator of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Heretical Empiricism (Indiana University Press, 1988; New Academia Publishing, 2005), Lawton has edited over fifteen volumes on film studies, cultural studies, and Romance languages and literatures. Most recently, with Elena Coda, he co-edited Re-Visioning Terrorism: A Humanistic Perspective (Purdue University Press, 2016).

Queens College, Italian-American Studies

The Italian-American Studies minor at Queens College is the oldest such college program in existence. Founded in 1973 by Richard Gambino, the Italian-American Studies program offers intellectually challenging and culturally enriching courses dealing with the Italian experience in the United States. 

In Fall 2012, four graduate courses in Italian-American Studies were approved by Queens College and the CUNY Board of Trustees and constitute an option in at least two MA programs at Queens College: the MALS (Master of Artes in Liberal Studies) and the M.A. in Italian. In addition to course offerings from a wide range of academic departments, Italian-American Studies cooperates with faculty teaching in interdisciplinary programs such as Women’s Studies, Film Studies, and other ethnic studies programs. The Italian-American Studies Program works closely with the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute. Credit-earning internships and practicum experience are available to students through the Calandra Institute.

Program Director: Fred Gardaphe is Distinguished Professor of English and Italian American Studies at Queens College/CUNY and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute. A prolific writer and author of seven monographs, he is the co-founding editor of the journals: Voices in Italian Americana and VIA.  His research interests encompass a broad range of areas within Italian American culture, literature, film and humor.

Seton Hall, Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute

Seton Hall offers a major and minor degree in Italian and a minor in Italian Studies within the Italian Studies Program. The program is enriched by the Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute, founded in 2003, with its many activities related to Italian and Italian American history and culture, thanks to donors Charles and Joan Alberto; as well as by the Valente Italian Library founded by Sal Valente, along with scholarship opportunities for students. 

Program Director: Gabriella Romani is Associate Professor of Italian at Seton Hall University. She received a Laurea from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and a Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. At Seton Hall she also directs the Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute and the Summer Study-Abroad Program in Rome. She is the author of Postal Culture: Writing and Reading Italy in Post-Unification Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2013), co-editor of Writing to Delight: Italian Short Stories by Nineteenth-Century Women Writers (University of Toronto Press, 2006),  

St. John's University, Italian Cultural Center

The Italian Cultural Center, established at St. John's in 1992, offers various educational and cultural activities that increase the awareness of Italian-Americans of their heritage, and strives to foster a greater appreciation of the significant contributions of Italians to American culture. With pride, the Center seeks to preserve, communicate, and celebrate Italian and Italian-American culture, values, and heritage while supporting the mission of the University.

Louis J. Gesualdi is Professor of Sociology at the College of Professional Studies, St. John’s University. As a sociologist, as a teacher and as a person Louis J. Gesualdi is dedicated to contributing to the areas of learning and knowledge within an ethic of truth and objectivity. This involves extensive reading, interacting with other scholars, conducting research, acquiring funding when necessary to support my research and disseminating the findings of my research. His email is gesualdi@stjohns.edu and his work phone number is 718-990-6472. 

Stony Brook University, The Center for Italian Studies

Founded in 1985 by Distinguished Service Professor Mario Mignone, the Center for Italian Studies has become an integral part of the Italian and Italian-American community on Long Island. Its mission is multifaceted:  to stimulate interdisciplinary research by the local academic community on issues that encourage a better understanding of Italy and of Italian Americans;  to become a national and international focus for Italian and Italian American affairs and to promote a better understanding of Italy and of Italian Americans by bringing the latest scholarly findings on Italy and Italian Americans to the general public as well as by organizing cultural activities of general interest.

Program Director: Mario Mignone is founder and director of the Center for Italian Studies.  He has organized and directed the Stony Brook Program in Rome for over thirty years. He is editor of the journal, Forum Italicum (now with Sage Publications).

Stony Brook University, Italian Studies and Italian American Studies

The Italian Studies Major at Stony Brook is keyed toward teacher preparation and certification, offering both the BAT and the MAT. It includes as well a traditional Major, a Minor, and an MA in Romance Languages, typically consisting of Italian coupled with either French or Spanish. The program also offers courses in English that go from Dante to Umberto Eco, as well as courses in cinema, which meet university-wide requirements and are typically well-enrolled. For more information: http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/eurolangs/programs/Italian_Studies.html 

The Italian American Studies Minor includes an extensive program of enrichment under the direction of the Alfonse M. D’Amato Endowed Chair. Courses are taught in English and cover the origin of Italian emigration, films by and about Italian Americans, and the social, cultural and literary traditions of Italian Americans in the United States. Students enrolled have also the option, and are often advised, to take courses offered in other departments such as History, Political Science or Art that complement the understanding of the complex experience of Italian Americans. For more details: http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/eurolangs/programs/Italian_American_Studies.html 

Program Director of Italian American Studies: Peter Carravetta is, since 2008, the Alfonse M. D’Amato Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies in the Department of European Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Stony Brook University.  A prolific poet, translator, theorist and professor of Italian culture and literature for over thirty years, he organizes lecture series and conferences as the D’Amato Chair to promote Italian American culture at a national and international level, as well as across various disciplines. To see recent activity, please go to: http://www.petercarravetta.com/damato-chair/  

University of Illinois, Chicago, Italian and Italian American Studies

A minor in Italian and Italian American Studies is offered by the Department of Hispanic and Italian Languages at the University of Illinois in Chicago.  Courses are varied and provide both critical, analytical and theoretical approaches to Italian studies.

Program Director: Chiara Fabbian is Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Italian Language Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Her research interests include nineteenth to twentieth century Italian literature, literature and anthropology, women's writing, language pedagogy and curriculum development.

University of Minnesota, Immigration History Research Center

Founded in 1965, the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) aims to transform the way in which we understand immigration in the past and present. Along with its partner, the IHRC Archives (University Libraries), it is the oldest and largest interdisciplinary research center and archives devoted to preserving and understanding immigrant and refugee life in North America. Together, they promote interdisciplinary research on migration, race, and ethnicity in the United States and the world through monthly seminars and research grants. US immigration history research is connected to contemporary immigrant and refugee communities through our Immigrant Stories project.

Director of the Immigration History Research Center: Erika Lee is Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History in at the University of Minnesota and Director of the Immigration History Research Center.  Her scholarly specialties include migration, race and ethnicity; Asian Americans; transnational U.S. history; and immigration law and public policy. Her new book, The Making of Asian America: A History was published by Simon & Schuster in 2015

University of Minnesota, Immigration History Research Center Archives

The Immigration History Research Center Archives (IHRCA, or IHRC Archives) is a renowned archives and library established in 1963 for the study of immigration, ethnicity, and race, documenting a broad range of immigrant and refugee experiences.  Researchers, both in-person and virtual.

Curator of IHRC Archives: Ellen Engseth and Head of Migration and Social Services Collections.

University of Wisconsin, Madison Italian Studies

From antiquity well beyond the Renaissance, the Italian peninsula was widely considered to be at the center of Western culture. Now, in the 21st century, Italy continues to influence our understanding of the human experience thanks to a tradition of prolific cultural production and intellectual thought.

The first class in Italian at UW-Madison was offered in the 1850s, and Italian language courses became a regular part of UW-Madison curriculum in academic year 1887-88. Italian at UW-Madison remains one of the oldest and most important Italian programs in the world.

UW-Madison students of Italian develop their proficiency in the language while discovering the region's history, literature, art, architecture and film in one of the largest and most successful Italian programs in the US. Italian faculty are worldly-renowned experts in literature, culture, history, film, and art, from the Middle Ages to the present. A combination of dynamic course offerings, on-campus immersion opportunities, study abroad and a variety of outreach events in Madison make the study of Italian a constantly evolving and enriching experience.

Grazia Menechella is Associate Professor and Undergraduate Advisor. She specializes in 19th and twentieth-century literature, theories of irony and parody, women writers, and cultural studies, and she has published on Giorgio Manganelli, Alberto Moravia, Romana Petri, and popular culture.