Given the goal of this original radio program, which literally brings our students and equipment to the nearby community to connect with local listeners and boost MSU engagement off campus, WMSC chose an Italian spot, in Pompton, NJ. The interviewer, Allen Macaraeg, addressed questions to Prof. Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, Italian program, CHSS), Prof. Lori McCaan (Voice Program Cali School, CART) and our special guest from Agrigento, in the region of Sicily, composer and director , to explore the different aspects of this exciting multi-phase initiative.

In the course of a lively exchange with Allen, Fiore explained the history of the project, born from Savatteri’s first visit on campus in Nov. 2024, and unfolding through three workshops with our students, a two-month summer internship in Sicily for three Opera and Musical Theatre students in 2025, and the March 27, 2026 Public Reading bringing together members of the Savatteri company and MSU students. McCann, also on behalf of Prof. Ryan Kasprzak (Musical Theatre, CART) highlighted the importance of the internationalization of the curriculum for Montclair State students in the Performing Arts, especially those in Opera and Musical Theatre: Italian constitutes a key language for their training and career opportunities.

Savatteri commented on the ancient and yet incredibly contemporary content of a musical that carries the timeless lessons of classical mythology. Precisely because of this eternal quality, Savatteri was excited to bring the musical from the UNESCO World Heritage site The Valley of the Temples of Agrigento – where the show is presented in front of the 5^th-century BC Tempio della Concordia – to the United States and have it speak English, thanks to the translation of the 2025 intern and Opera student, Brianna Coppolino. Her precise and poetic version was completed under the supervision of Prof. Trubiano (Italian program) and encapsulates the type of translation of knowledge, talent, experience, languages and cultures that the overall initiative activates in three departments (Musical Theatre, Voice at the Cali School of Music, and Italian), two colleges (CART and CHSS), two kind of entities (public university and private company ) and effectively locations in two continents, Montclair (USA) and Agrigento (Italy).

Sponsored by the Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies, in collaboration with the Cali School of Music, the , , and , this international intercollege initiative reflects the Expand Reach and Amplify Impact commitment of ����vlog’s mission: “Increase global engagement by creating international experiences, broadening access to Montclair programs and promoting a global mindset.”

Special thanks to Communications and Media major, Allen Macaraeg, and his team of students from the award-nominated WMSC radio, supervised by Annabella Poland, who joined at Cafè classico for a cappuccino. And a special “grazie” to the owners of Caffe classico for their hospitality and generosity. It’s always nice to find arancine and cannoli on the other side of the Atlantic after a long flight from Sicily!

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Blending excerpts from audiovisual archival material, literary sources, and original video-interviews with direct witnesses of the 1943 Allied Landing in Sicily, the presentation read a largely forgotten pivotal historical event of WWII through the lens of foodways. In Fiore’s approach, as a memory and narrative device, food allows for an alternate history of the liberation campaign through complicating both the myth of the Land of Abundance incarnated by the U.S. military forces and the image of a destitute Sicily that the Americans embraced.

Included in the Jerre Mangione Lecture Series and sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies, the lecture fostered a lively debate among graduate students and faculty alike with a mix of touching family recollections, intellectual curiosity towards the subject, and careful inquiry about the research methodology.

This ever-expanding site available in both and , and configured in mobile-friendly mode accessible via cell phone, is an aggregator of pre-existing forms of knowledge as well as new textual, video, and audio material, gathered in collaboration with professors of the University of Palermo (including the Agrigento branch, Polo Territoriale), environmentalist guides, chefs, photographers, architects, local residents, etc., and co-implemented with Ph.D. students Giacomo Frazzetta and Doğa Tekin. The project was co-sponsored by the Agrigento 2025 Foundation, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Region of Sicily, the Municipality of Agrigento, the Inserra Chair (����vlog), and UCLA, with the logistical support of the Municipality of Realmonte.

The project has already been covered in other media: , , and .

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City Hall of Agrigento, Piazza Pirandello, 1 – Multimedia room (inside the atrium on the right)
December 1-31, 2025 Hours: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm Saturday 10am-1pm
Info:

Guided tour: Sunday Dec. 28 at 5:30pm in the courtyard of City Hall, Agrigento. The main actress, Lucia Cammalleri, originally from Canicattì (Agrigento) will be in attendance. A light thematic tasting will be prepared by the pastry baker Federica Farruggia (Casa Barbadoro). We will write postcards to the artist currently in New York City.

Through an experimental narrative, the film tells the journey to the United States of the protagonist, a Sicilian woman forced to emigrate to the USA with an imposed arranged marriage, leaving behind a partner and her children. As such, the woman becomes “other” both with respect to the world she comes from and that of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in which she finds herself living after crossing the ocean. The theme of the video is highly relevant to the Agrigento 2025 dossier, entitled “The Self, the Other and Nature: Cultural Relations and Transformations” and places emphasis on the gender issue, in a province characterized by strong emigration, including female emigration, both in the past and today.

This work by Maria Rapicavoli is inspired by the words of Simone de Beauvoir in the 1949 essay “La donna like other:” its opening to the public takes place only one week after the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1999.

The other: A familiar story is an installation included in the SPONDE project, within Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Agrigento Capitale Foundation, the Sicilian Region, the Municipality of Agrigento, and the Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at ����vlog.

Dr. Fiore shared information about the condition of Italian Americans at the time of Pearl Harbor and described their paradoxical experience of being at once “enemy aliens” in 1942 and supporters of the military efforts with the drafting of large numbers of soldiers of Italian descent, while also being concerned about the fate of their relatives back in the country of origin, since Italy was an enemy up to the Landing. Dr. Fiore also illustrated how the 82nd anniversary of the Landing was celebrated in Licata as part of the programs of Agrigento Capital of Culture 2025. Since the main topic of the evening was indeed the cultural value of the memory of the Landing as part of public history projects, she provided a model that embraces a multi-disciplinary approach in line with the mission of and its Italian chapter, (see SBARCO).

British cemetery (Siracusa)

While this history remains quite unknown to the general public in the U.S., and in Sicily it is still narrated by locals in a fragmented and often partisan way, the landscape tells powerful concrete stories of Italian defense systems developed before the Landing, Allied military structures built after it, and pre-existing places adapted to the war needs.

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Sept. 1943 Armistice location (Cassibile, SR)

Ruins of trenches, firing positions for cannons, and fuel tanks carved into the ground, as well as well-preserved cemeteries, bunkers, plaques, bomb shelters, and quarries functioning as arm deposits have revealed to Dr. Fiore a completely new way of seeing Eastern Sicily, often visited for Greco-Roman archeological sites and Baroque architecture.

 

It is a mostly silent history that is interestingly gaining voice through thematic tours such as those designed by Daniele Valvo and theater re-enactments in key spots (see ) that evoke the experience of frantically looking for a shelter against air-bombings or sadly killing a young soldier in what was a confusing war of allies turned into enemies and enemies turned into allies.

In the process, Dr. Fiore is discovering a plethora of small associations devoted to the collection of military gear (see Operation Husky organization) as well as organizations creating small museums and offering talks and debates: the memory of the event is a space of tension where nostalgia, ideology, archival research, and modern readings interweave and clash, providing rich materials for her sabbatical project.

Italian bunker (Siracusa)

Data: Sabato 13 dicembre
Luogo: Sala Consiliare del Comune di Realmonte (Via Roma, 19) – Parcheggio in via Piazza Vecchia per accedere dall’ingresso principale del Municipio oppure via Venezia per accedere direttamente alla Sala Consiliare attraverso le scale e la terrazza belvedere.

Il sito di mappatura spessa offre percorsi di visita alternativi nella zona dell’iconica Scala dei Turchi. Attraverso una lettura multispecie e multidisciplinare del luogo, attenta a botanica, biologia marina, geologia, gastronomia, cinema e letteratura, il sito invita a entrare in un mondo di storie umane e non, ben più complesso della nota località balneare, e a proteggere con cura e sapienza questo luogo tanto spettacolare quanto fragile. DESCRIZIONE DETTAGLIATA DEL PROGETTO

Ore 10-11:30 Illustrazione e lancio del sito (Prof. in collegamento da UCLA e Prof.ssa Teresa Fiore in presenza)
Ore 12-14 Visita della Scala dei Turchi con pranzo a sacco offerto dall’organizzazione
Guide: , guida naturalistica, e , educatore ambientale

Evento gratuito aperto al pubblico con pranzo a sacco incluso. Numero massimo 50 persone con previa prenotazione obbligatoria. La partecipazione alla presentazione soltanto, senza il pranzo a sacco e la visita, non richiede prenotazione.Per la prenotazione, si prega di riempire questo .

Il sito, configurato anche in modalità mobile-friendly accessible via cellulare, è un progetto co-ideato e co-realizzato dal Prof. Vetri Nathan (UCLA) e della Prof.ssa Teresa Fiore (����vlog) con il supporto dell’assistente di ricerca Dott. (UCLA) e con i contributi di professori e professoresse di UNIPA, guide ambientaliste, chefs, residenti locali, ecc. Per la descrizione completa del progetto nelle sue varie fasi si veda la pagina web.

Un evento incluso nel progetto , all’interno di , con la co-sponsorizzazione dell’Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies (����vlog), UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) e il , con il sostegno del Ministero della Cultura, della Fondazione Agrigento Capitale, della Regione Siciliana e del Comune di Agrigento, con i contributi scientifici dell’Università degli Studi di Palermo e del Polo Territoriale Universitario di Agrigento, e con l’ospitalità del Comune di Realmonte.

NB: In caso di maltempo, la visita della Scala non si svolgerà e il pranzo a sacco verrà sostituito da un aperitivo. La prenotazione resta valida a prescindere dalle condizioni del tempo.

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Based on her sabbatical research on foodways at the time of the Allied Landing in Sicily (1943), the paper revises the narrative of the American forces feeding Sicilians through the use of eighteen interviews with direct witnesses and scholars sharing stories about the stark contrast between the local wartime food and the industrial food brought by the soldiers from the US. See webpage.

Prof. Cinotto introduced Dr. Fiore’s talk providing special insights into the impact of the landing in Italy in terms of U.S. control of the economic and socio-political sphere. The students’ questions during the Q&A revealed a keen interest in historical issues, in methodological aspects linked to oral history, and in the encounter of cultures during wartime.

UNISG has an institutional commitment to videos about food. Its film archive directed by Dr. Gabriele Proglio, is devoted to oral history about food, food history, food practices, etc.

UNISG is a private university linked to Slow Food, the movement founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986. Focused on food and sustainability, the academic approach privileges collaborative hands-on projects ranging from cooking, cook-book writing, market visits, food history research, eco-agronomy techniques, etc.

The UNISG campus is a World-Heritage (UNESCO) site with its distinctive historical buildings, imposing towers, elegant courtyards, printing office for student-managed publications, student-tended fruit and vegetable gardens, and a unique cafeteria that largely relies on the produce cultivated on campus. All under the watchful eye of the snail, the Slow Food symbol, under no time pressure.

Join us now for a series of programs this mid-October, from presentations to a workshop and master class led by the creator and director of the musical, Marco Savatteri, and one of the actors, Toti Maria Geraci, with the participation of the three students. Meanwhile, the translation of the musical script is in the works in connection to a class taught by Prof. Trubiano, and will be the basis for a reading on campus scheduled for Spring 2026.

The internship was designed by Prof. Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair) and co-organized with Prof. Lori McCann (Voice Program, Cali School of Music), in collaboration with Prof. Ryan Kasprzak (Musical Theatre).

See the flyer below for all the details or access the webpage.

Dr. Fiore, a former Fulbright scholar, illustrated the work done at ����vlog in the field of internationalization of the education experience: from the focus on Made in Italy in the Tri-State Area with the BA in Language, Business, and Culture to the Translation Project which created unique internships in Italy for students specializing in subtitling and surtitling for the Performing Arts.

Fiore has highlighted two recent projects: her 2025-26 sabbatical project about the Allied Landing in Sicily, which has produced a , as well as the two-month internship in a Sicily-based musical for three Montclair State students of Voice, Musical Theater and Italian who have performed in Il risveglio degli dei in the Valley of the Temples of Agrigento for several magical dawns.

“Given the upcoming 250th Anniversary of the foundation of the U.S., there will be opportunities for collaborations to highlight the historical relationships between Sicily and the U.S. as well as relevant current projects,” Cook remarked.