Lund, Jens. Italian Heritage Days festival activities at First Interstate Square, Walla Walla, Washington. Photograph. Walla Walla, Washington, 1989. From Library of Congress: Italian Americans in the West Project collection.
Italian studies, Italian culture, Folklore
The assignment has typically been done outside of class, as a collection project. In other courses on folklore, students might interview people who engage in an activity or narrate a story; they then would describe the folkloric material and then discuss its relevance to the people. It then is turned in as a formal paper. In ITAL 240, this type of assignment was modified to use the memoir as the resource (but it was otherwise a collection project).
In other words, the in-class time would be used to set up the project and explain the digital resource, but the students would explore the material on their own
ITAL 240: Italian Folklore and Popular Culture
Dr. Fabian Alfie, Italian Studies, and Leslie Sult, University of Arizona Libraries
Spring 2023 as part of a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant
The course deals with the folklore, folk ways, and oral culture of Italy, Italians, and Italian Americans. Indeed, the last unit deals specifically with the Italian diaspora in the United States. Throughout the semester, we cover numerous genres of folklore, from fairy tales and legends through recipes and festivals (all in translation).
The signature assignment for the course is one of collecting a folkloric item, and traditionally we have used the memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli (written in the 1930s and describing the customs of a small town in the deep south of Italy). While the memoir is a good resource, it is very dated, describing a way of life that is foreign to students in the twenty-first century.
By shifting the collection project to the Library of Congress’s digital collection “Italian Americans in the West Project”, students will see actual Italian folkloric forms transplanted in the United States, with vivid photographs and descriptions. Furthermore, for students at the University of Arizona, it is particularly beneficial that the digital resource focuses on the Western United States, as an overwhelming amount of studies on Italian-Americans deal with the East Coast; the geographic focus of the digital collection will be more relevant to our students.
The students would learn about the nature and types of folklore and folk ways, as well as the way that folklorists collect and describe folk practices. The students would also learn about the nature of digital resources, which are changing how we understand source materials.
Students will be sent the link to the Italian Americans in the West Project digital collection by email.
In one dedicated lesson, the digital resource project will be explained. During the lesson, students will be asked to work with the Italian Americans in the West Project digital resource in groups. The purpose of this in-class activity is to familiarize them with the resource and to demystify the project (hopefully, they will individually generate good ideas about the project so that they can built upon the lesson in their projects).
The assignment is for a 5-7 page paper in which they identify and describe a piece of folklore which is represented in the Italian Americans in the West Project digital archive. They need to describe the material: where it is, when, who does (did) it, its significance to the participants. If possible, they will need to identify any correlated folklore in Italy, and describe its importation to the United States. Additionally, they need to attribute the folklorist who collected it in the field. Up to three photographs can be attached to the paper.
The paper will be graded with a rubric that will include the following categories: clarity of expression; appropriate citation; accurate description of the folklore; significance of the folklore to the participants; and additional information (such as photographs, if appropriate).
There is a second digital resource that is also appropriate for the collection assignment, the Alan Lomax Collection of Michigan and Wisconsin Recordings.
The ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax recorded a number of songs from Italian-American immigrants. Additionally, with Diego Carpitella, he recorded folksongs in Italy in 1954-55.
The following songs, as well as attached materials, would be appropriate for the collection assignment described above:
Performer: Victor Marinetti
However, since these songs are in Italian, they would only be appropriate for those students familiar with the Italian language (i.e., Majors or Minors). Nevertheless, this second digital resource will be provided as an alternative for those students who wish to use it.
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