The “Son of Italy” nearly 100
A Zoom In-Person (“ZIP”) Talk
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
@ 6:30pm – 8pm
The Com.It.Es. Detroit, a non-profit Italian organization representing Italians living abroad, under the Auspices of the Consulate of Italy in Detroit, is pleased to present Professor Ken Scambray, to discuss the classic Italian autobiography by Pascal D’ Angelo: Son of Italy, published in 1924. This Zoom special talk will be hosted at the Italian American Cultural Center (IACC) in Clinton Township, MI. Prof. Scambray will be on a Zoom call live from his San Clemente, CA home. Attendees in-person at the IACC or on the Zoom call will be able to ask questions.
Prof. Scambray will discuss Pascal D’Angelo’s autobiography, Son of Italy. In his presentation, he will cover the American cultural and literary context surrounding D’Angelo’s autobiography and Italian immigration at the time. He will also place D’Angelo’s work within the context of Italian American literature before World War II, including Pietro Di Donato’s equally remarkable work, Christ in Concrete published in 1939.
Kenneth Scambray received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Riverside. His works include The North American Italian Renaissance: Italian Writing in America and Canada (2000), Surface Roots: Short Stories (2004), Queen Calafia’s Paradise: California and the Italian American Novel (2007), Italian Immigration in the American West: 1870-1940 (2021). For 35+ years he wrote for L’Italo-Americano, contributing hundreds of book & film reviews and travel essays, based on his extensive Italian travels. His many other essays on Italy, Italian immigration, and folk art installations in the West have appeared in national and international journals and anthologies. His poetry & fiction have appeared in national literary journals. He is the winner of The Paterson Literary Review’s Editor’s Choice Prize for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, 2007. For 17 years Prof. Scambray took his students on a cultural tour of Rome & Florence during the January interterm. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of La Verne. One set of Prof. Scambray’s grandparents immigrated from Sicily; the other from Calabria. His surname was “Schrembi” before it was Americanized. Prof. Scambray wrote the afterword of the republished 2003 Guernica edition of Son Of Italy.
Location à Italian American Cultural Center à 43843 Romeo Plank Rd., Clinton Township MI. Free admission. Advance registration required by March 25 for those wishing to Zoom remotely. Register to remote Zoom by emailing the COMITES office: comitesdetroit1@gmail.com. For those attending in-person, doors will open at Tuesday March 28 @ 6:30 pm with the Zoom presentation following at 7:00 pm until 8:00 pm.