Call for Papers: The Italian Ethnic Press in North America

International Symposium 

The Italian Ethnic Press in North America: Expanding Scholarship on Language, Education and Identity

(See poster above for call for papers details)

Date: September 23, 2025

Location: Seton Hall University, Chancellor’s Suite

Organizers: Matteo Brera, William J. Connell

Objectives

This one-day conference will gather leading scholars, historians, and researchers to explore the crucial role played by the Italian language periodicals in shaping the cultural, racial, and political discourse of the Italian American diaspora. The event will highlight how periodicals served as tools of community building, racial self-perception, and resistance against nativist narratives, while also engaging in broader discussions on identity formation and methodological advances in Italian American Studies.

Rationale

The Italian ethnic press played a significant role in both preserving cultural identity and negotiating racial belonging within the complex social landscape of the United States. Despite its centrality, much of the historical scholarship on Italian American identity has overlooked periodicals published in Italian. This is particularly true for the US South’s Italian-language press, as historiography has been limited primarily to the Northeast and Midwest. This expert meeting aims to address this gap by focusing on archival sources and examining the press as a medium of self-representation and a contested space where issues of race, class, and nationality were continuously renegotiated.

Key Themes

The meeting will be structured around several interrelated themes, each exploring different facets of the migrant press and its influence on the Italian American experience:

1. The Italian Ethnic Press as an Agent of Knowledge and Community Building
   
   • The role of newspapers in preserving Italian language, culture, literature, and traditions.
   • Community engagement and social activism through the press.
   • The function of periodicals in political mobilization and resistance to discrimination.
2. Racial Discourses and Whiteness in the Italian Press
   
   • The shifting racial positioning of Italian Americans in the U.S. South.
   • The role of newspapers in mediating perceptions of whiteness and blackness.
   • The press’s response to nativist hostility, the 1891 New Orleans lynching, and segregation laws.
3. Transnational Dimensions of the Migrant Press
   
   • TheItalian press as a link between the homeland and diaspora communities.
   • Transatlantic dialogues on identity, race, and migration policies.
   • The influence of Italian criminology, nationalism, and Fascism on the Italian press in North America.
4. Comparative and Methodological Approaches to the Study of the Italian Press
   
   • The use of digital humanities in mapping, analyzing ethnic periodicals, and creating reality-augmented and AI-enhanced educational tools.
   • Comparative case studies from different regions of the U.S. and their interconnections.
   • Interdisciplinary approaches, including cultural history, discourse analysis, literary criticism, and media studies.

Format and Structure

The expert meeting will consist of individual papers and discussions and a final keynote presentation to summarize the key findings and future directions. The tentative schedule includes:

• Individual Papers – Thematic talks on the role of the migrant press in shaping identity and racial consciousness.
• Roundtable  Discussion – Scholars and archivists will discuss challenges and opportunities in preserving and digitizing historical Italian American newspapers.‍
• Final Keynote – A distinguished scholar will deliver a closing keynote. This can be an independent talk but could also reflect on the discussions and propos future research directions.

Expected Outcomes

This meeting aims to achieve several concrete outcomes:

1. A Research Agenda – Identification of key research gaps and priorities for future studies on the Italian migrant press.
2. Collaborative Projects – Fostering international and interdisciplinary collaborations for archival digitization and content analysis.
3. Scholarly Publication – Publication of proceedings or a special journal issue focusing on new perspectives in Italian American Studies(Studi Emigrazione, Italian-American Review, Memoria e Cultura)
4. Public Engagement – Strategies for making research on theItalian migrant press accessible to wider audiences, including through digital humanities projects and exhibitions.

Target Audience

This expert meeting is intended for historians, literary scholars, migration researchers, media studies specialists, digital humanities practitioners, and archivists working on Italian American and migration studies. Graduate students and early-career researchers with an interest in the Italian ethnic press and diaspora identity will also be encouraged to participate. The keynote address will be open to the community.