Next ICS events:
Laura Benedetti
Laura Benedetti is the Laura and Gaetano De Sole Professor of Contemporary Italian Culture at Georgetown University. The author of numerous volumes and essays that cover seven hundred years of Italian literature, from Dante to Elena Ferrante, she was awarded the Flaiano International Prize for her monograph The Tigress in the Snow: Motherhood and Literature in 20th-Century Italy, and has received grants and fellowships from the Renaissance Society of America, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation. A Country of Paper (originally published in Italian as Un paese di carta) is her first novel, followed by Secondo Piano (Second Story).
Donatella Melucci
Donatella Melucci is a Teaching Professor of Italian at Georgetown University and a professional translator. She is the co-author of two Italian language textbooks: Da Capo, 7th edition, and Piazza: Luogo di incontri. Her translation of Helene Stapinski’s Murder In Matera: A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy, was published in Italy in November 2022 as Mistero a Matera.
BOOK PRESENTATION
Laura Benedetti presents “A Country of Paper” – the English version of her first novel “Un Paese di Carta” – in conversation with Donatella Melucci
Thursday, February 9th, 7:00pm ET at the ICS Headquarters (4833 Rugby Ave. Bethesda, MD). In-person + Zoom Webinar
A Country of Paper spans two countries (the United States and Italy), three generations of women (Alice, her daughter Jane and her granddaughter Sara), and more than sixty years, from World War II to 2011. It tackles issues of cultural identity, family ties, displacement and loss, as it follows Sara in her journey to L’Aquila, Italy, to fulfill her grandmother’s last wish. Her personal quest intersects with the town’s struggle to recover from the disastrous 2009 earthquake, as Sara painfully uncovers her family’s history while trying to find her bearings in a devastated urban landscape.
You can buy the book at the event or online
CARNEVALE 2023
A fun Festa organized by Casa Italiana Language School ed Ente Promotore in partnership with Italians in DC, Le D.I.V.E., The Italian Cultural Society of Washington DC, The Abruzzo and Molise Heritage Society, Casa Italiana Sociocultural Center Inc.
Sunday, Feb. 12th. – Get details and RSVP by clicking on the flyer/image
Per ulteriori informazioni e prenotazioni contattare [email protected]
The ICS, in collaboration with AFI theater Silver Spring, is pleased to invite you to a special screening of CINEMA PARADISO. After the screening, Italian wine reception and a sweet surprise for all the guests.
Sunday, February 19th, 5:00 pm at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center (big room, capacity 400 people)
8633 Colesville Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Giuseppe Tornatore’s acclaimed 1988 love letter to cinema remains a beloved fan favorite, best enjoyed on the big screen. Successful Roman film director Salvatore Di Vita (Jacques Perrin) receives news from his mother in his Sicilian hometown that Alfredo (Philippe Noiret), the town’s former movie theater projectionist, has died. This prompts a flood of memories and emotions for the man who, now seen in flashback, was a father figure and mentor to the young Salvatore, and who encouraged his love of movies and the pursuit of his dreams, wherever they might lead him. Tornatore winningly evokes the world of 1950s smalltown Sicily, abetted by Ennio Morricone’s masterful score, Blasco Giurato’s rosy cinematography and a wonderful performance by Noiret. Winner, Best Foreign Language Film, 1990 Academy Awards®; Grand Prix, 1989 Cannes Film Festival. DIR/SCR Giuseppe Tornatore; PROD Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli. Italy/France, 1988, color, 124 min. In Italian with English subtitles. RATED PG.
Virginia Jewiss
Virginia Jewiss received her PhD in Italian literature from Yale University and taught at Dartmouth, Trinity College’s Rome campus, and Yale before joining Johns Hopkins University, where she is the Associate Dirrector of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute. She has translated the work of numerous Italian authors and film directors, including Luigi Pirandello’s short stories, Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah, Melania Mazzucco’s Vita and screenplays for Paolo Sorrentino, Matteo Garrone, and Gabriele Salvatores.
Annelise Brody Morani
Annelise Brody Morani received her laurea in comparative literature at the university of Bologna with a thesis on Dante and the Rossetti family. She received also her MA and Ph.D in Italian literature from the JHU with a thesis on Virginity in Early Italian literature. She then went on teaching as a faculty member at various college institutions joining Washington University in Saint Louis in 2005 where she taught Italian language, literature and cinema at all levels. She also served as language coordinator until 2018. She developed and taught online language courses as a winner of a grant in language and technology research at her institution (2014) She became proficient in using both Blackboard and Canvas platforms. Her main research interest is in Medieval Italian literature and in particular in literature and ethics. She published papers on Petrarch and Boccaccio, presented at numerous conferences. Annelise is also a passionate yoga practitioner and a certified yoga instructor in Hatha yoga and ELDOA 1&2. She has been teaching yoga to dancers, children as well as seniors. Her focus is on improving mobility and spinal health.
ICS FEBRUARY CULTURAL EVENT
Virginia Jewiss presents her translation of “Vita Nova” by Dante Alighieri – in conversation with Annelise Brody Morani
Sunday February 26th, 2:30 PM ET at the ICS Headquarters (4833 Rugby Ave. Bethesda, MD). In-person + Zoom Webinar
Prof. Virginia Jewiss in conversation with Prof. Annelise Brody Morani presents “Vita Nuova” by Dante Alighieri, a sparkling translation that gives new life in English to Dante’s Vita Nuova, his transcendent love poems and influential statement on the art and power of poetry, and the most widely read of his works after the Inferno.
Dante was only nine years old when he first met young Beatrice in Florence. Loving her for the rest of his life with a devotion undiminished by even her untimely death, he would dedicate himself to transfiguring her, through poetry, into something far more than a muse—she would become the very proof of love as transcendent spiritual power, and the adoration of her a radiant path into a “new life.”
Censored by the Church, written in the Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin, exploding the courtly love tradition of the medieval troubadours, and employing an unprecedented hybrid form to link the thirty-one poems with prose commentary, Vita Nuova, first published in 1294, represents both an innovation in the literature of love and the work of Dante’s that brings this extraordinary poet into clearest view. This limpid new translation, based on the latest authoritative Italian edition and featuring the Italian on facing pages, captures the ineffable quality of a work that has inspired the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Robert Penn Warren, and Louise Glück, and sustains the long afterlife of a masterpiece that is itself a key to the ultimate poetic journey into the afterlife, The Divine Comedy.
FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE ICS! APERITIVO…CONVERSANDO IN ITALIANO
Enjoy Aperol Spritz & “stuzzichini” while chatting with native Italian instructors/staff
Passaparola (spread the word) con amici e conoscenti che vogliono conversare in Italiano. Non preoccuparti se sei “beginner level”, unisciti a noi per un autentico aperitivo italiano del venerdì sera. Ne faremo uno al mese!
Friday, March 3rd, from 6:15 to 7:30pm at the ICS (4833 Rugby Ave., Suite #201 Bethesda, MD 20814)
A minimum of 5 people are required for this event to take place. Please RSVP by Thursday, March. 2nd at 2pm.
Must be 21 to attend.
ICS Recommends the following upcoming events:
All events organized by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Washington
MARYLAND LYRIC OPERA
VERDI’S OTELLO
Fri. March 3, 2023 at 7:30pm – Sun. March 5, 2023 at 2pm
Location: The Music Center at Strathmore (5301 Tuckerman Lane North Bethesda, MD 20852)
A passionate retelling of the great tragedy of jealousy, deception, and murder, Verdi’s Otello delivers a thrilling response to Shakespeare’s play, from the violent storm that opens the opera, through to Iago’s blood-chilling “Credo,” and Otello’s increasingly desperate duets with Desdemona. Verdi’s score abounds with fiery ardor, penetrating the darkest reaches of the soul to illuminate the fear and fragility of the heart. This performance will have Super Titles.
A pre-performance discussion with Legendary baritone Sherrill Milnes – for anyone with tickets to the performance – will take place at 6:15pm on Friday, March 3 and at 12:45pm on Sunday, March 5.
AN ITALIAN IMPRESSIONIST IN PARIS: GIUSEPPE DE NITTIS
Special Exhibition – NOVEMBER 12, 2022 – FEBRUARY 12, 2023
The Phillips Collection, in collaboration with the Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, the City of Barletta, Italy, and the Puglia Region (Italy), presents the first exhibition in the US devoted to the work of Giuseppe De Nittis (1846-1884), an Italian painter whose career flourished in Impressionist Paris in the 1870s and 1880s. The exhibition is only shown at the Phillips and features approximately 70 artworks.
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