Thursday, September 5, 2013 The Italian Cultural Foundation at Casa Belvedere presents Cinema Sotto Le Stelle 2013, an “Outdoor” Italian Film Festival. This year the festival will feature a retrospective of some of Italy’s most acclaimed comedies and romances of the past five years: a contemporary look on a new definition of “la Commedia all’Italiana,” and a look at today’s Italy society. Furthermore, to celebrate the great Anna Magnani on the 40th anniversary of her death, a screening of “The Rose Tattoo” has been planned. Admission to the film festival is free and everyone is encouraged to bring a beach chair or a blanket. Donations are welcome and a snack bar with food and refreshments will be available. Parking is available across the street at Notre Dame Academy. Screenings begin at 8:00 PM. Please note that many of the films have not been rated and may not be suitable for younger audiences. For information and to subscribe to the mailing list to learn more about the upcoming events please call 718-273-7660, e-mail info@casa-belvedere.org or visit the website at www.casa-belvedere.org.
Friday, September 6, 2013 Reading: 9/11 Remembrance hosted by Gordon Gilbert. Participate in an evening of poetry, monologues and song expressing personal remembrances of 9/11. 6:00 PM. Cornelia Street Café. 29 Cornelia Street, Manhattan. 212-989-9319. www.corneliastreetcafe.com
Sunday, September 8, 2013 Festa: Il Comitato per il Ripristino della Festa della Madonna Nera cordially invites you to the Tenth Annual Festa in Honor of the Sicilian Black Madonna del Tindari. For a decade we have gathered each September 8th at the Phoenix Bar where we have recounted stories, recited poetry, sketched chalk drawing on the sidewalk, built an outdoor shrine, sang hymns in the open air, and danced to the rhythms of pizzica and tarantella. In doing so we have created a new sense of the past and our connection to it, and ultimately a new sense of who we are. We have created community. On this tenth anniversary, the festivities begin at 4 pm and continue until the last person decides to leave. Once again, the Phoenix Bar owner Brenda, the bartenders, and the patrons have graciously opened their space for this event. No reservations are required. 4:00 p.m. at the former site of her devotion, The Phoenix Bar, 447 East 13th Street, off of Avenue A, Manhattan.
Thursday, September 12, 2013 Exhibition Opening: Lo Studio dei Nipoti: Four Artists. The Calandra Institute presents an exhibition by Lo Studio dei Nipoti (“The Studio of the Grandchildren”), a nonprofit artist collective for U.S. artists of southern Italian ancestry. The works featured here, by artists Nancy Agati, Cianne Fragione, Rose Michelle Taverniti, and Marisa Tesauro, represent an effort to engage with immigrant culture in the United States through the lens of the Italian-American experience while seeking to evoke realities of Italian-American life in their true range and variety. The exhibition will be on view until January 10, 2014. The opening is at 6:00 PM and regular gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5 PM. Free and open to the public. John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor, New York, New York 10036 (Between 5th and 6th Avenues; B, D, F, M to 42nd St./Bryant Park, or 7 to 5th Ave./Bryant Park) RSVP encouraged but not required, (212) 642-2094. For further information see www.qc.edu/calandra.
Sunday, September 15, 2013 Award Winning Poet Louisa Calio directs and hosts the Association of Italian-American Educators Poets & Writers Piazza at Hofstra’s 21st Italian Experience, sponsored by Arba Sicula, at the Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater Axinn Library on Hofstra’s South Campus. Readings by John Barrale, Gaetano Cipolla, Marisa Frasca, Barbara Branca, Lorraine LoFrese Conlin, Florence Gatto, George Guida, Rita Monte, Louisa Calio, Nino Provenzano, Stanislao Pugliese, David Risk. Special Features include: Annie Rachele Lanzillotto and Lulu Lolo. Musical Interludes with Sicilian folk artists Michela Musolino and Julia Patinella and Andreas Arnold. Book sales & signings throughout the day. 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM. For further Information contact: Louisa Calio at louisacalio.1@juno.com or Jessie A Garcia at Jessie.A.Garcia@hofstra.edu.
Monday, September 16, 2013 Mass and Gala: The Puglia Center of America asks you to join them for the only Official Holy Mass & Gala Dinner in the US, in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of Padre Pio’s passing and in support of the “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza,” Padre Pio’s Hospital. The Puglia Center of America, in collaboration with the Catholic Foundation for Brooklyn and Queens, the National Italian Apostolate Conference, and under the patronage of the Archdiocese of Manfredonia, Vieste and San Giovanni Rotondo, will organize the Holy Mass to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Padre Pio’s passing. The Mass begins at 7:00 PM at the Sacred Hearts & Stephen Church, located at 108 Carroll St., Brooklyn, New York 11231. Father Carlos Laborde, Secretary General of the International Association of Padre Pio Groups of Prayer, will celebrate the Holy Mass. The money collected during the offertory of this Holy Mass will be donated to the Hospital “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza”, founded by Padre Pio. After the Holy Mass, the evening will continue with the book presentation The Photographer and the Saint by Gaetano Mastrorilli, Saint Pio’s personal photographer. The event will also include a photo exhibition – a collection of about thirty unpublished pictures and an unpublished video clip of Saint Pio. Following the Holy Mass and book presentation, there will be a Gala Dinner at 9:30pm, at the Marco Polo Ristorante, located at 345 Court Street, Brooklyn, New York 11231. Guest of Honor of the evening will be the renowned restaurateur, celebrity chef, author and television personality, Donatella Arpaia. A delegation of the “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza” from San Giovanni Rotondo, headed by Dr. Domenico Crupi, Vice President and General Director of the Hospital, will be present during the event. The money from Gala Dinner tickets sale will be donated to the Hospital “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza”, in San Giovanni Rotondo. On this special occasion, a thousand rosaries designed on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of Padre Pio’s passing, will be crafted from wood of secular olive trees from the Holy Land.
Tickets are available at $200.00 per person. To purchase the ticket online: http://iawa.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c23cecfc03e6cf32e136a140&id=817023a1c0&e=059b8ffed4
Sponsor opportunities available upon request. Please, make the check payable to: PUGLIA CENTER OF AMERICA. Address: 244 5th Avenue, Suite L-283, New York, N.Y. 10001. For more information, please contact (212) 726-2547 or send an email to info@pugliacenterofamerica.com
Thursday, September 19, 2013 Symposium: Italian Identity in the Third Millennium. This symposium is a continuation — a sort of inter-mission — of the last three symposia ILICA has sponsored on the topic. After two events last fall and a third this past spring in Rome, ILICA concludes this discussion in November. This event, in the meantime, offers the four Italian Americans an opportunity to gather their thoughts, so to speak, before the final edition in November at John Jay College. Speakers will include: Donna Chirico (York College), Louisa Ermelino (Publishers Weekly), Fred Gardaphé (Queens College & Calandra Institute), Robert Viscusi (Brooklyn College). Sponsored by: ILICA (Italian Language Inter-Cultural Alliance) and the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College/CUNY. 6:00 PM. John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor, New York, New York 10036 (Between 5th and 6th Avenues; B, D, F, M to 42nd St./Bryant Park, or 7 to 5th Ave./Bryant Park) RSVP encouraged but not required, (212) 642-2094. For further information see www.qc.edu/calandra.
Saturday, September 21, 2013 Reading: The Italian American Writers Association presents a Literary Reading Mulberry Street Library/NYPL. The Mulberry Street Branch of NYPL is proud to host the Italian American Writers Association for a literary reading in conjunction with the feast of San Gennaro. 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM. 10 Jersey Street between Lafayette Street and Mulberry Street, one block south of E. Houston Street. Accessible from the B, D, F, and M trains at Broadway/Lafayette, 6 train to Bleecker Street. Handicapped accessible. 212-966-3424. http://iawa.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8c23cecfc03e6cf32e136a140&id=b4a1884a1a&e=059b8ffed4
Saturday, September 21, 2013 Brooklyn Book Festival BOOKEND EVENT: Daniela Gioseffi, James Periconi, Anthony Tamburri & Robert Viscusi read from their 2013 VIA Folios/ Bordighera Press Books. 2 PM to 3:30 PM at the Brooklyn Historical Society, Free & Open to the Public. 128 Pierrepont St. Brooklyn Heights, corner of Clinton St. All subways to Borough Hall Stops, Brooklyn Heights. R, A, 2, 3 <brooklynhistory.org> Brooklyn Book Festival BOOK END events: <http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/BBF/BookendEvents>
Sunday, September 22, 2013 Book Signings /Tabling / Meet & Greet Italian American Authors: Daniela Gioseffi, James Perconi, Anthony Tamburri, Robert Viscusi for 2013 VIA Folios / Bordighera Press Books. Discount sales. 10 AM to 6 PM. Brooklyn Book Festival, Largest Book Fair in the City. Support your Italian American Press. Borough Hall Park: Brooklyn Heights. Free & Open to the public. All subways to Court St. Montague, Fulton, Joralemon Streets. Borough Hall area. <www.brooklynbookfestival.org>
Tuesday, September 24, 2013 Women’s & Trans’ Poetry Jam & Open Mike. Featured Writers: Nancy Mercado & Safiel Vonay. Nancy Mercado’s writing comes primarily as a response to injustice. Safiel Vonay’s work consists of emotional poetry expressing love, hate, confusion and self motivational pieces. Many of her poems are also fictional stories that have fragments of her personality and life. $5 suggested donation. 7 PM – 9 PM. This series, started in 1999, is hosted by Vittoria repetto – the hardest working guinea butch dyke poet on the lower east side. Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen St. (between Staton & Rivington), 1 1/2 blocks south from E. Houston, NYC. 212-777-6028 info@bluestockings.com. http://iawa.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c23cecfc03e6cf32e136a140&id=a4aaec3f6e&e=059b8ffed4. Open mike (for women & trans) – sign-up at 7 pm – 8 minute limit. Bring your poetry, your prose, your songs, and your spoken word. Take F train to 2nd Ave. and exit from the 1st Ave exit and walk south down Allen St. (aka. 1st Ave) 1 ½ blocks to the store.
Thursday, September 26, 2013 Reading: Domenica Ruta reads from With or Without You: A Memoir (Spiegel & Grau, 2013). Domenica Ruta’s With or Without You is a lyrical memoir about a chaotic childhood in a working-class town, the power–and sometimes stranglehold–of a mother-daughter relationship, the painful realities of poverty and addiction, and an exceptional individual surviving deep traumas. A finalist for the Keene Prize for Literature and a recipient of residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, Ruta has penned here a love letter to her mother–to both the woman who scraped together money to send her to French lessons and painting classes and the one who spent her welfare money on cocaine. This book is an unconventional coming-of-age story and a sharply observed chronicle of one woman’s redemption from her past. 6:00 PM. Free and open to the public. John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43rd Street, 17th floor, New York, New York 10036 (Between 5th and 6th Avenues; B, D, F, M to 42nd St./Bryant Park, or 7 to 5th Ave./Bryant Park) RSVP encouraged but not required, (212) 642-2094. For further information see www.qc.edu/calandra.
Wednesday, October 2 and Thursday, October 3, 2013 The Columbia Energy Frontier Research Center and The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies present “Nanotechnology and Sustainability: New Research in Italy and the United States.” Free and open to the public. RSVP and find further information at
http://iawa.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c23cecfc03e6cf32e136a140&id=89a776bb98&e=059b8ffed4.
Friday, December 6 and Saturday, December 7, 2013 International Conference: “Liberty and Conflict: Machiavelli on Politics and Power.” 2013-2014 annual meeting of the
Conference for the Study of Political Thought. Organized by David Johnston and Nadia Urbinati (both of the Department of Political Science, Columbia). Columbia University, Department of Political Science, The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue (south of 118th Street) New York, NY 10027. Free and open to the public. RSVP: http://iawa.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c23cecfc03e6cf32e136a140&id=932689d4a9&e=059b8ffed4