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"Promotes the understanding of Italian Americans and Greek Americans through the study of their interactions and juxtapositions. Redirecting Ethnic Singularity: Italian Americans and Greek Americans in Conversation contributes to U.S. ethnic and immigration studies by bringing into conversation scholars working in the fields of Italian American and Greek American studies in the United States, Europe and Australia. The work moves beyond the "single group approach"--an approach that privileges the study of ethnic singularity--to explore instead two ethnic groups in relation to each other in the broader context of the United States. The chapters bring into focus transcultural interfaces and inquire comparatively about similarities and differences in cultural representations associated with these two groups. This co-edited volume contributes to the fields of transcultural and comparative studies. The book is multi-disciplinary. It features scholarship from the perspectives of architecture, ethnomusicology, education, history, cultural and literary studies, film studies as well as whiteness studies. It examines the production of ethnicity in the context of American political culture as well as popular culture, including visual representations (documentary, film, TV series) and "low brow" crime fiction. It includes analysis of literature. It involves comparative work on religious architecture, transoceanic circulation of racialized categories, translocal interconnections in the formation of pan-Mediterranean identities, and the making of the immigrant past in documentaries from Italian and Greek filmmakers. This volume is the first of its kind in initiating a multidisciplinary transcultural and comparative study across European Americans"--
List of contents
Preface: Una faccia, una razza / ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿ ¿¿¿ ¿¿¿¿¿: More to It Than Meets the Eye | vii
Fred L. GardaphéIntroduction: Italian Americans and Greek Americans in Conversation | 1
Yiorgos Anagnostou, Yiorgos Kalogeras, and Theodora PatronaPart I: Constructing, Historicizing, and Contesting Identities"Dirty Dagoes" Respond: A Transnational History of a Racial Slur | 23
Andonis PiperoglouA Greek American Vice President? The View from the Italian American Community | 46
Stefano LuconiMediterranean Americans to Themselves | 72
Jim CocolaPart II: Identity Construction in Two Ethnic CommunitiesStyle and Real Estate: The Architecture of Faith among Greek and Italian Immigrants, 1870-1925 | 105
Kostis KourelisEthnic Language Education:
A Comparative Study of Greek Americans and Italian Americans in New York City | 141
Angelyn Balodimas-Bartolomei and Fevronia K. SoumakisPart III: Ethnic and Gender Identities in Literature and MusicIdentity, Family, and Cultural Heritage:
Narrative Polymorphy in
Let Me Explain You and
Catina's Haircut | 185
Eleftheria ArapoglouEthnic Investigations of the American Crime Scene:
Comparing Domenic Stansberry and George Pelecanos | 210
Francesca de LuciaImaginative Living in Mediterranean New England | 238
Panayotis LeaguePart IV: Ethnic Identities and Visual CultureAn Ethnic Can't Be Like Other People?
The Construction of Greek Americans and Italian Americans in
Kojak | 271
Sostene Massimo ZangariIrrevocable or Irreversible?
Authenticating Identities in Italian and Greek Immigration Documentaries | 298
Yiorgos KalogerasAmerican(ish) Rebels: Class, Gender, and Ethnicity in
Moonstruck and
My Big Fat Greek Wedding | 323
Michail C. MarkodimitrakisAfterword: Beyond Methodological Singularity | 351
Donna R. GabacciaAcknowledgments | 365
List of Contributors | 367
Index | 373
About the author
Yiorgos Anagnostou (Edited By, Introduction and notes by) Yiorgos Anagnostou is Professor and the Director of the Modern Greek Program at The Ohio State University. He is the author of
Contours of White Ethnicity: Popular Ethnography and the Making of Usable Pasts in Greek America.
Yiorgos D. Kalogeras (Edited By, Introduction and notes by) Yiorgos D. Kalogeras is Professor Emeritus of American ethnic and minority literature. He taught until his retirement (2018) at the Department of English Aristotle at University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He is the author, co-author, or editor of twelve books.
Theodora Patrona (Edited By, Introduction and notes by) Theodora Patrona is affiliated with the School of English of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece, as Special Teaching Fellow (EDIP). She is the author of
Return Narratives: Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature.
