Traveling Italy, Writing America: Ethnic Identity Construction in Italian American Literature

Illuminates why Italy continues to captivate the American imagination, connecting classic literature to contemporary memoirs and popular media that still view Italy as a site of transformation, desire, and reflection

Traveling Italy, Writing America argues that the American idea of Italy, at once sunny and dark, refined and excessive, has played a crucial role in shaping both U.S. national identity and Italian American literary self-fashioning. The book shows how this idea was forged in nine...