Diversity in Italian Studies

"This volume of essays embodies the genesis of change in Italian studies. In essays theoretical and practical, scholars set out to draw the contours of a new interactive and responsive map. Looking with fresh eyes and scholarly thoroughness at decades-old learning systems, they identify problems and challenge assumptions that undergird these systems' limitations and legacies. Fundamental new approaches, including those emerging from the experiences of Black and other non-White students and professors as well as of LGBTQIA+ scholars and others, are brought to bear in this frank re-evaluation. Facing the task of effecting the radical changes necessary for creative development, these scholars look hopefully and with determination toward the future of Italian studies"-- "Whereas diversity entails the recognition and appreciation of difference and its value, it is, for the most part, an expression that serves to urge the effecting of some form of transaction or change. Declining enrollment numbers in foreign-language study programs, along with the urgent growth of awareness in academia that established curricula may not be serving the best interests of the discipline or of future speakers and scholars of Italian language, indicate that the time to bring about radical change in this field is now. This volume of essays (coming out of a symposium held at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY ...) embodies the genesis of that change. In essays theoretical and practical--and both simultaneously--these Italian studies scholars set out to draw the contours of a new interactive and responsive map. Looking with fresh eyes at decades-old learning systems, they identify problems with the assumptions that undergird them and examine, with scholarly thoroughness and without rancor, these systems' limitations and legacies. Fundamental new approaches, including those emerging from the experiences of Black and other non-White students and professors as well as of LGBTQIA+ scholars and others, are brought to bear in this frank re-evaluation. Facing the task of effecting the radical changes necessary for creative development, these scholars look hopefully and with determination toward the future of Italian studies."--Page 4 of printed paper wrapper.