Thursday, May 7, 2015, 6pm
Joseph Sciorra, Calandra Institute, Queens College, CUNY

For more than a century, Italian-American Catholics in New York City have developed a varied repertoire of devotional art and architecture to create sacred spaces in their homes and neighborhoods, spaces outside of but in relationship to the consecrated halls of local parishes.

Today, yard shrines, domestic altars, presepi (Nativity crèches), extravagant Christmas house displays, and street processions are examples of the vibrant and varied ways contemporary Italian Americans continue to use material culture, architecture, and public ceremonial display to shape New York City's religious and cultural landscapes. Built with Faith (University of Tennessee Press, 2015), Joseph Sciorra's ethnographic study, examines these forms of lived religious expression as they have manifested themselves in the city from the 1980s to the present day.

Source: John D. Calandra Italian American Institute