Book review: Peter Carravetta, Language at the Boundaries: Philosophy, Literature, and the Poetics of Culture

Abstract

of Columbus Day. In his “Postscript” to this compact, well-documented book, Tamburri offers his final thoughts on “where history has fallen by the wayside.” Citing examples of insensitivity by Italian American leaders and groups in their “outlandish” responses to such issues as the protests following the murder of George Floyd, Tamburri underlines the historial ignorance of those who attempt to equate Italian Lives Matter in the context of Black Lives Matter. In response to another unfounded claim that over the past 40 years Italian Americans have seen their heritage and history “slip away,” Tamburri counters by stating that “over the past five decades we have watched many Italian Americans abandon their language, history, and literature as they move into WASP America” (p. 108; emphasis in original). Inspired by Giovanni Schiavo’s call to build an intellectual class of Italian Americans on Italian Americans, Tamburri argues that the primary concern is to develop courses and curricula in Italian/American and Italian Diaspora Studies in our colleges and universities. However, he concludes with the caveat that there must be a collective buy-in on the part of academic units and non-academic Italian/American associations in order to move forward in a productive way.