In this Book
- Buried Caesars, and Other Secrets of Italian American Writing
- Book
- 2006
- Published by: State University of New York Press
- Series: SUNY series in Italian/American Culture
summary
Robert Viscusi takes a comprehensive look at Italian American writing by exploring the connections between language and culture in Italian American experience and major literary texts. Italian immigrants, Viscusi argues, considered even their English to be a dialect of Italian, and therefore attempted to create an American English fully reflective of their historical, social, and cultural positions. This approach allows us to see Italian American purposes as profoundly situated in relation not only to American language and culture but also to Italian nationalist narratives in literary history as well as linguistic practice. Viscusi also situates Italian American writing within the “eccentric design” of American literature, and uses a multidisciplinary approach to read not only novels and poems, but also houses, maps, processions, videos, and other artifacts as texts.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. xix-xxii
- 1. English as a Dialect of Italian
- pp. 25-38
- 9. The Italian American Sign
- pp. 161-187
- 10. The Imperial Sopranos
- pp. 189-217
Additional Information
ISBN
9780791482421
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
65288643
Pages
294
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No