Italian Americans on Screen

Reviews / Votes

Both building upon and moving beyond established critical paradigms, Italian Americans on Screen promotes crucial new lines of media inquiry. It legitimizes the contributions of non-Italian American filmmakers; touches upon long-ignored television programs, century-old newspapers and new media programs; and delves into recent exchanges between Italian and American media cultures. This collection is a fundamental (re)starting point for future research. -- Giorgio Bertellini, University of Michigan Departing from Robert Casillo's strict-constructionist definition of an Italian-American cinema and media studies (an Italian-American director on an Italian-American subject), Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, Alan Gravano, and their many contributors have boldly expanded across "blurred boundaries," generic, interdisciplinary, intersectional, and historical. Their innovative methods and wealth of fresh content will make this volume itself the marker of a new moment in Italian-American Studies. -- John Paul Russo, University of Miami Italian Americans on Screen: Challenging the Past, Re-Theorizing the Future is a thoughtful collection of dense essays that offers readers a look at some of the many approaches to the increasingly visible field of Italian American studies. It is a scholarly book for an academic audience that sets out to update and, in some cases, challenge existing parameters of the field, and in this way, I fully agree with the editors in their positioning of the volume as a clear successor to works by such foundational scholars as Anthony Tamburri, Fred Gardaphe, and Robert Casillo. * Italian American Review *