"Little Italy" and Beyond:
York University Lecture Series Examines Italian Canadians' Reflections on Their Multicultural Past, Present and Future

TORONTO, March 3, 1999 -- Italian Canadians have long contributed to Canada's cultural richness and nation building efforts. As they reflect on their multicultural past, present and future, York University's Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies is presenting a lecture series entitled Recognizing the Other: Italian Canadians and the Multicultural Project, through to March 26, 1999.

With more than 500,000 people of Italian origin in the Greater Toronto Area, the series aims to promote knowledge of the Italian-Canadian experience from "Little Italies" to cigar-factory readers to the novel:

Nicholas De Maria Harney, Postdoctoral Fellow, York University Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies, will examine Toronto's "Little Italies" from College Street to Woodbridge and help us understand the making and maintaining of Italian Canadian neighbourhoods within Toronto in a lecture entitled, Whose Neighbourhood is it Anyway? Exploring the Place of Italian Canadians in a Diverse City, Thursday, March 4.

Gary Mormino, Frank E. Duckwall Professor of History, University of South Florida will examine the practice of cigar-factory labourers hiring one of their own to read and discuss the works of such figures as Victor Hugo and Karl Marx, a practice which began in Cuba during the 1850s and spread to Toronto at the turn of the century. Mormino's lecture is entitled, Italians and Other Immigrants in the Cigar Industry: The Reader in the Caribbean, the US and Canada, 1860-1930 and will be held Thursday, March 11.

Photographer Vincenzo Pietropaolo, whose photographs have been exhibited by the Royal Ontario Museum and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, will address the theme of the immigrant experience with selections from relevant sections of his work entitled Little Italy and Beyond: A Photographic Illustration Thursday, March 18.

Mauro Buccheri, York University Professor of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, will discuss how Italian Canadian writers retrieve the mythologies of their culture to gain a sense of identity and make sense of the world. But, by doing so they run the risk of further distorting the "other". The works of Nino Ricci, Frank Paci and Antonino Mazza will be among the works examined during Buccheri's lecture entitled Mythologizing "the Other": Italian Canadian Writers and the Pathos of Distance Friday, March 26.

*All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Alberto Di Giovanni Library, Columbus Centre, 901 Lawrence Avenue West, Toronto (at Dufferin Street). The lecture series is free and open to the public.

Now in its 15th year, York University's Mariano A. Elia Chair in Italian Canadian Studies promotes knowledge of the Italian-Canadian experience and its contribution to the development of Canada through teaching, research and public forums.

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For more information, please contact:

Silvana Stifani
Department of Languages, Literatures
and Linguistics, York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 88721

Sine MacKinnon
Senior Advisor, Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22087

Ken Turriff
Media Relations Officer
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
YU/017/99