Samuele Pardini, visiting assistant professor of Italian, and Michael Frontani, associate professor of communications, hosted Fred L. Gardaphé, distinguished professor of English and Italian-American Studies at Queen's College/CUNY Graduate Center, for an appearance as part of the Fund for Excellence Lecture Series.
Gardaphé delivered a lecture on “Jersey Shore: Italian Americans and the Media” on Monday, April 26.
Using images, lecture and questions from the audience, Gardaphé, described how Jersey Shore is the latest—perhaps even last—in a century and a quarter series of media-mediated stereotypes about Italian-Americans. Almost 100 students, faculty and members from the local community convened for Gardaphé’s presentation.
A prolific writer of essays, book reviews, drama, fiction, film, video scripts and poetry, Gardaphé is the author of several seminal studies about Italian American culture. His academic works include Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative (1993); Dagoes Read:
Tradition and the Italian American Writer (1996); Moustache Pete is Dead! – Italian American Oral Tradition Preserved in Print (1996); Leaving Little Italy: Essaying Italian American Culture (2004); and From Wise Guys to Wise Men: The Gangster and Italian American Masculinities (2006), his study of the gangster figure in U.S. culture. He also serves as associate editor of Fra Noi, an Italian American monthly newspaper.
Gardaphé will serve as a Fulbright Scholar at L’Universitá degli Studii di Salerno in Salerno, Campania, Italy during the 2010 – 2011 academic year, where he will be teaching and lecturing about American humor and Italian American culture.
Raised in the predominantly Italian American community of Melrose Park, Illinois, Gardaphé earned a BS in Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; an MA in English from the University of Chicago; and a Ph.D. in Literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with an emphasis on cultural criticism and American multicultural literature. A leading expert in the field of American Studies, he directs the Italian American Studies Program at Queens College, where he teaches courses in Italian American history and culture, film and literature.
