Description
Sciorra spent thirty-five years researching these community art forms and interviewing Italian immigrants and US-born Catholics. By documenting the folklife of this group, Sciorra reveals how Italian-Americans in the city use expressive culture and religious practices to transform everyday urban space into unique, communal sites of ethnically infused religiosity. The folk aesthetics practiced by individuals within their communities are integral to understanding how art is conceptualised, implemented, and esteemed outside of museum and gallery walls. Yard shrines, sidewalk altars, Nativity presepi, Christmas house displays, a stone-studded grotto, and neighbourhood processions — often dismissed as kitsch or prized as folk art — all provide examples of the vibrant and varied ways contemporary Italian-Americans use material culture, architecture, and public ceremonial display to shape the city’s religious and cultural landscapes.
Written in an accessible style that will appeal to general readers and scholars alike, Sciorra’s unique study contributes to our understanding of how value and meaning are reproduced at the confluences of everyday life.
Book Information
ISBN 9781621903833
Author Joseph Sciorra
Format Paperback
Page Count 277
Imprint University of Tennessee Press
Publisher University of Tennessee Press
Weight(grams) 525g