On Friday, June 9, 2023, ICAP Waterloo organized the book launch of Narrarsi Altrove, a publication that marks the culmination of 3 years of intensive work by the poet, Anna Ciardullo Villapiana, conjointly with Prof. Gabriele Niccoli (emeritus St. Jerome’s University/University of Waterloo and former Honorary Vice Consul of Italy) who edited the volume and translated the Italian poems into English and with Stella Paola (a dedicated local secondary school teacher from Resurrection Catholic Secondary School who translated the prose into English). The event took place at St. Jerome’s University with over 85 invited attendees from the Waterloo, Kitchener, Guelph, Toronto and other areas comprising some of the interviewees themselves and University administrators, scholars, artists, journalists, Comites members, media as well as Abril Liberatori (ICAP President), Kate Squissato (ICAP secretary) and Gabriella Colussi Arthur (ICAP Past President). The ICAP Waterloo committee had approached ICAP in 2020 with this innovative and highly creative project. From a series of oral interviews undertaken by the three collaborators (working undeterred through Covid and conducting 90 interviews via Zoom), several valuable objects were identified, and from there, Anna’s poetic journey began. Her individual poems, which accompany stories contextualizing the origin and significance of the objects, underscore the value and meaning of the “diasporic object”, the material object, a treasure from the homeland and a carrier of personal identity for each custodian’s life journey. As Gabriel Niccoli, our own ICAP Board member and mentor throughout the project’s evolution, so eloquently puts it in his critical introduction to the volume, the material diasporic object encompasses “the triptych of diaspora, memory, and identity”.
Please see the original flyer, the accompanying article featured in the Thursday, June 8 edition of the Corriere Canadese and a photo with Gabriel, Anna, Gabriella and Stella taken on Friday evening in front of the Tree of Life in the Fireplace Lounge at St. Jerome’s. For a copy of the volume, please contact Gabriel Niccoli, gniccoli@uwaterloo.ca.
Carrie-Ann Smith est titulaire d’une maîtrise en bibliothéconomie et sciences de l’information de l’Université Dalhousie à Halifax. Elle est devenue membre de la Pier 21 Society à l’été 1998 et occupe actuellement le poste de Device-President, Public Engagement Officer au Musée canadien de l’immigration du Quai 21. Mme Smith (ne vous fiez pas à son nom de famille) est un descendant de Federico et Mabli Artuso de San Martino di Lupari; elle a écrit une histoire sur sa vie de jeune italo-canadienne grandissant à Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, paru dans Mamma Mia: Good Italian Girls Talk Back (ECW Press). L’objectif de Mme Smith de travailler au Musée, qui est d’aider à recueillir, préserver et faire connaître les souvenirs des immigrants qui sont venus au Canada, la motive également à contribuer au travail de l’ICAP.
Sandra Parmegiani enseigne les études italiennes et européennes à l’Université de Guelph et a été présidente de la Société canadienne d’études italiennes (juin 2014 à juin 2017). Dans le passé, elle a enseigné la littérature et la langue italiennes au Trinity College de Dublin (Irlande) et à l’Université de Western Ontario. Ses recherches portent sur la littérature et la culture italiennes du XVIIIe siècle et de la période contemporaine. Depuis 2013, grâce à une bourse obtenue de Mitacs, elle encadre des travaux postdoctoraux sur la cartographie des ressources culturelles immatérielles par l’analyse de la culture de la lecture.
