In this talk, Prof. Ferraiuolo examines the Italian American community of Boston’s North End as a case study to analyze the negotiating identities of Italian migrants to the USA.
Ferraioulo will focus on the analysis of the North End’s religious festivals to demonstrate that, in part, they help maintain and establish a variety of identities, and that these identities are multistranded, complex, shifting, and negotiated—and thus ephemeral. In addition, Ferraiuolo shows in detail how individuals negotiate and construct identities as Italian Americans, Scaccianesi, Neapolitans, Catholics, and others, within the context of these celebrations. Importantly, investigating the ways in which selfhood is constructed, he argues that contemporary identities function as hypertext, in the manner of web-based technologies, linking to one another and building upon each other as constantly evolving
“technologies of the self.”