Podcasts about vernacular architecture forum

**this was originally released on the bonus feed for Patrons in July 2022; enjoy! And consider supporting the show on Patreon!**This is the second installment in our sporadic Dead Reckoning bonus series. This episode takes us to the haunted coast of Connecticut, where spirits are said to linger at New London Ledge Light and Penfield Reef. Sources: Blake, Kevin. "Lighthouse Symbolism in the American Landscape." FOCUS on Geography, Summer 2007, pp. 9 - 15. Carter, Donald. Connecticut's Seaside Ghosts. Schiffer, 2008. “Lighthouse Facts.” United States Lighthouse Society. https://uslhs.org/education/glossaries-facts-trivia/lighthouse-facts.Miller, Allen S. “‘The Lighthouse Top I See': Lighthouses as Instruments and Manifestations of State Building in the Early Republic.” Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, vol. 17, no. 1, Spring 2010, pp. 13 - 34. Support the show

Dr. Cynthia Falk is Professor of Material Culture at the Cooperstown Graduate Program, a two-year master's program in museum studies at SUNY Oneonta. Falk is the author of the books Barns of New York: Rural Architecture of the Empire State (Cornell, 2012) and Architecture and Artifacts of the Pennsylvania Germans: Constructing Identity in Early America (Penn State, 2008) as well as several articles and book chapters. Falk served as the co-editor of Buildings & Landscapes: The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum from 2012-2017 and is currently on the National Historic Landmarks Committee of the National Park System Advisory Board. In the local community, Falk serves as deputy mayor of the Village of Cooperstown. In that capacity, she has worked to secure funding to benefit Cooperstown's infrastructure, historic resources, and natural environment. Globally, Falk is a Special Assistant with International Ministries, an affiliate of American Baptist Churches USA. In this capacity, Falk has led trips to Israel and the West Bank, Haiti, and Honduras, and is currently working to be certified as a lay pastor.   Mentor: I have been fortunate to be mentored by various individuals, from a variety of walks of life, from my childhood until today.   Links:    Otsego County Barns of New York US Army Reserve Civil Affairs The Birth Center Winterthur American Baptist Churches Village of Cooperstown SUNY Oneonta Cooperstown Graduate Program   Keywords: podcast, good, do good, amplify, amplify good, season 3, academic, agricultural labor, American Baptist Churches, architecture, archives, Barns of New York, beer, children, Delaware, elected, family, farm labor, government, Henry Glassie, history, hops, intention, material culture, mentee, mentoring, mentors, Micah 6:8, midwife, migrant, motherhood, museum, new year, nonprofit, slavery, solutions, spouse, SUNY Oneonta, The Birth Center, US Army Reserve Civil Affairs, Village of Cooperstown, Winterthur  

Today's guest is historian and ballet dancer Allison Finkelstein. Allison is Senior Historian at Arlington National Cemetery. She is an alumna of the College of William and Mary and earned her PhD in History at the University of Maryland at College Park. Allison previously worked as a historian for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services History Office & Library and as a Historical Consultant for the American Battle Monuments Commission and the US Vietnam War Commemoration Office. From 2017-2018, she served as the Chair of the Arlington World War I Commemoration Task Force. In 2020, The National Alliance of Preservation Commissions (NAPC) recognized her work on the Clarendon War Memorial with the Excellence Award in Best Practices: Public Outreach/Advocacy. Allison is the author of Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945, which is part of GFOP Steve Trout's War, Memory, and Culture Series at the University of Alabama Press. The book won the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference's 2022 Arline Custer Memorial Award for the best book written in the Mid-Atlantic region. Her articles have been published in Buildings & Landscapes: The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum and World War I Remembered, the National Park Service's book of essays on the First World War. Allison and her work have been featured in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and she has appeared on several media outlets. Join us for a feel-good chat with Allison as we discuss growing up visiting battlefields in Virginia, public history, Gilbert & Sullivan, being in the recent Kennedy Center production of Giselle, and a singer-to-listen-to-for-the-rest-of-your-life choice that caused Brian and Bill to fall out of their chairs! Shoutout to Rocklands BBQ in Alexandria and Pierce's BBQ in Williamsburg! Rec.: 02/16/2023

Who are the experts in a city? In a neighborhood? In this episode, we meet a professor of architecture who has designed a ‘field school' that encourages students to dig into these questions. We sit on front porches in some of Milwaukee's most economically challenged neighborhoods to learn from residents that building community, and caring for a place, takes more than a hammer and nails.In this episode:Dr. Arijit Sen is a professor at UW-Milwaukee, where he teaches courses in architectural design and urban cultural landscapes. He cofounded Buildings-Landscapes-Cultures, a program for students in the Architecture and Art History doctoral programs at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison. The BLC Field School mentioned in this episode has ongoing projects that are documented on this website. Arijit has worked on post disaster reconstruction and community-based design in the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans and written extensively about South Asian immigrant cultural landscapes. He served on the board of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, a national organization dedicated to the study, preservation and analysis of the everyday world.Camille Mays is the founder of Peace Gardens MKE. She explains that with the blessing of families who have lost people due to gun violence, she plants perennial flowers as a way to care for her neighbors while improving the neighborhood. She speaks as part of local and national forums about her work and serves on city and local committees. Camille has been featured in many articles, including:- Picturing Milwaukee- My Block: The Peace Gardens of Sherman Park- Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service: How Camille Mays finds peace after gun violence took her sonCheri Fuqua is the founder of The Middle Ground, a community organization that provides employment opportunities, along with resources and life skills, to help Black youth in Milwaukee. She is an AmeriCorps Alumni and a graduate of the Neighborhood Leadership Institute. In 2016 Ms. Cheri was honored with a Resident Leader Award from Mayor Tom Barrett. For over twenty years, she has maintained a strong presence in her community by connecting residents, leaders, and stakeholders at monthly meetings.Chelsea Alison Wait is a PhD candidate in Architecture at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) at UWM. Chelsea focuses on community collaboration, storytelling, public history, local architecture history, and finding ways to integrates her public art practice. Chelsea's research looks at how people practice care as it relates to the built environment and urban landscape. She is an adjunct faculty at SARUP, teaching introduction to design and local architecture histories, and an associate lecturer in the Peck School of the Arts, where she teaches teaches multicultural history of America and artwork.

This episode features a conversation with Professor Amber Wiley. She is an old friend who is an Assistant Professor in the Art History Department at Rutgers University and a scholar who has traveled the world studying culture.Quote:"The Civil Rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute." - Julian Bond Timestamps:13:34 - Guatemala17:36 - Africa (Ghana & Ethiopia)20:20 - Being called a 'white person' in Africa24:14 - India (Mumbai/Bombay, Goa, Delhi, Jaipur, Udaipur)27:00 - Vietnam (Ho Chi Min City/Saigon)32:00 - War Remnants Museum (Vietnam)36:15 - Mexico (Tlatelolco)Links:Society of Architectural Historians: H. Allen Brooks Travelling FellowshipAmber's blog post: An American in Saigon Da 5 Bloods & Black Vietnam Veterans article in Time MagazineTlatelolco, Mexico: Memorial 68 MuseumVietnam: War Remnants MuseumTangible Remnants on InstagramTangible Remnants on FacebookBio: Amber Wiley specializes in architecture, urbanism, and African American cultural studies. Her research interests are centered on the social aspects of design and how it affects urban communities - architecture as a literal and figurative structure of power. She focuses on the ways local and national bodies have made the claim for the dominating narrative and collective memory of cities and examines how preservation and public history contribute to the creation and maintenance of the identity and “sense of place” of a city.Her teaching approach mirrors her dedication to critical thinking about the human condition in the built environment, and the creation, evolution, and maintenance of cities, neighborhoods, and communities. She strives to actively engage in discourses that are significant across academic fields. Her theoretical and analytic background was founded in art and architectural history methodology, as well as the interdisciplinary methods of American Studies. She combines analysis of aesthetics and socio-cultural influences on community building with questions about the meaning of culture, authority, and agency.She is active in preservation policy as well as various professional organizations. She has served on the National Park System Advisory Board Landmarks Committee, and on the boards of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Yale Black Alumni Association.Find Amber on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.**Some of the links above may be Amazon affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you.** **This episode is sponsored by www.Smartsheet4architects.com, a better way to manage architecture projects.**

Become an insider by supporting the show at https://glow.fm/archispolly where you can support the show on a recurring or one-time basis! Amber Wiley is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Rutgers University. She provided insight on Tyler House neighboring areas like LeDriot Park and Dunbar High School. Born in Oklahoma, Wiley recalls visiting her grandfather in DC which set the foundation of her future works. Professor Wiley research interests center on the social aspects of design and how it affects urban communities - architecture as a literal and figural structure of power. She focuses on the ways local and national bodies have made the claim for the dominating narrative and collective memory of cities and examines how preservation and public history contribute to the creation and maintenance of the identity and sense of place of a city. Her publications cover African American cultural heritage, urbanism in New Orleans, school design, urban renewal, and preservation. Her current book project is entitled Concrete Solutions: Architecture, Activism and Black Power in the Nation's Capital. Amber was co-Principal Investigator of the National Historic Landmark Nomination Update for the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site. She gave expert testimony for the highly contested Barry Farm historic landmark designation in Washington, DC. She also worked as a consultant for the National Building Museum exhibition “Community Policing in the Nation's Capital: The Pilot District Project, 1968-1973.” She has served on the National Park System Advisory Board Landmarks Committee, and on the boards of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Yale Black Alumni Association Amber received her Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University. She also holds a Master's in Architectural History and Certificate in Historic Preservation from the University of Virginia School of Architecture, and a B.A. in Architecture from Yale University. Links: Website: https://ambernwiley.com/ “The Dunbar High School Dilemma,” Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States, 2 ed. Edited by Max Page and Randall Mason (London, New York, NY: Routledge, 2019) “A Model School for a Model City: Shaw Junior High School as a Monument to Planning Reform,” Designing Schools: Space, Place and Pedagogy. Edited by Julie Willis and Kate Darian-Smith (London, New York, NY: Routledge, 2017): 158-174 “A Modern-Day WPA,” Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for the Next Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in the United States. Edited by Max Page and Marla R. Miller (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016): 261-264 “Geography, Planning, and Performing Mobility in New Orleans,” Walking in Cities: Quotidian Mobility as Urban Theory, Method, and Practice. Edited by Timothy Shortell and Evrick Brown (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2016): 177-196

Pat Collins and Henry Glassie and Face2Face host David Peck talk about Field Work, beauty, non-verbal cues, silence and listening, eliminating prejudice, and why art is always rooted in community. Trailer Synopsis: Following the success of Song of Granite, Irish Director Pat Collins returns with his new documentary feature, Henry Glassie: Field Work, which will have its world premiere at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival.Over the last 50 years the celebrated American Folklorist Henry Glassie has been writing in-depth studies of communities and their art. Inspired by the writings and ideas of Glassie – Field Work is an immersive and meditative documentary set among the rituals and rhythms of working artists across Brazil, Turkey, North Carolina and Ireland. Glassie’s subject is folklore but his deep abiding love for the people who create it resonates throughout the film: 'I don’t study people. I stand with people and I study the things they create.'Collins’ achievement with Henry Glassie: Field Work is to bring these makers of art, in wood, fabric, yarn, paint, clay, metal, in song and story to our attention through their work, through the raw materials they shape into art objects and through the undeniable passion they carry in to their work.In this way the work is accorded profound meaning for the societies out of which it is generated an aesthetic value which is transcendent. And under Collins’ ever mindful direction, the process of making something out of raw materials is luminously manifested in sequences which reflect their measured and focused approach. The actual real time process of making works, such as hands, of the physicality of that work, and the close attention the artist is bringing to the work. For more info about the film head here.About Pat and Henry: Since 1999, Pat Collins has made over 30 films. His latest release Song of Granite, funded by the Irish Film Board, BAI, SODEC and Telefilm Canada, received its world premiere at SXSW 2017 and was the Irish nomination for best Foreign Language Oscar 2018. His other credits include Silence, which had its international premiere at London International Film Festival and the 3-part series 1916 (co-director), which aired on networks including the BBC and PBS. In 2012, the Irish Film Institute curated a mid-career retrospective of his work.Henry Glassie is one of the most celebrated folklorists across the world. He has spent the last 50 years making in-depth studies of communities and their art. Henry, College Professor Emeritus at Indiana University Bloomington, has done fieldwork on five continents and written books on the full range of folkloristic interest, from drama, song, and story to craft, art, and architecture. Glassie began teaching in the Folklore Institute at Indiana University in 1970. In 1976, he became the chairman of the Department of Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1988, he returned as a College Professor to Indiana University, where he had appointments in Folklore and Ethnomusicology, American Studies, Central Eurasian Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and India Studies. He retired in 2008.Glassie has served as president of the American Folklore Society, the Vernacular Architecture Forum, and his local historic preservation organization, Bloomington Restorations Incorporated. He is married to fellow folklorist Pravina Shukla, a professor at Indiana University, who is an award-winning teacher and the author of two major books on dress and adornment: The Grace of Four Moons and Costume. Glassie and Shukla co-authored Sacred Art, an ethnographic account of creativity in northeastern Brazil. Glassie has four children and four grandchildren.He published his first scholarly paper, an article on the Appalachian log cabin, in 1963. Since then, he has published over 100 articles and a steady stream of books.Image Copyright: Harvest Films and Pat Collins. Used with permission.F2F Music and Image Copyright: David Peck and Face2Face. Used with permission. For more information about David Peck’s podcasting, writing and public speaking please visit his site here. With thanks to Josh Snethlage and Mixed Media Sound. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat...

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York.  He’s also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City’s Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms.  The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters.  Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens College which is part of the City University of New York. He's also a Brooklyn-born and -raised Italian American and in this episode of the New Books in Folklore podcast, he talks about his latest book, Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City (University of Tennessee Press, 2015) which “offers a place-centric, ethnographic study of the religious material culture of New York City's Italian American Catholics” (xiv). A transdisciplinary work, albeit firmly grounded in folklore scholarship and based on ethnographic research conducted over 35 years, this book is a comprehensive study of the myriad ways in which a people express their personal religious faith in tangible, dynamic, and often public forms. The resulting yard shrines, sidewalk altars, elaborate presepi (Nativity scenes), and other manifestations – which also include extravagant Christmas light adornments of domestic exteriors, The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto in Rosebank, Staten Island, and a series of Brooklyn religious processions – usually receive no kind of official sanction. In fact, they are more likely to provoke disdain than approbation in most quarters. Nonetheless, they allow residents to both meaningfully relate to and actively construct the city in a way that is unique to “New York” and also speak to a vernacular Italian-American ethos that sets great store by the concept of lavoro ben fatto, or “work done well”. In Built with Faith, Sciorra gives prominence to the voices of the creators of this landscape of devotional material culture, voices which he has captured over decades in formal interviews as well as less formal ‘phone conversations, and casual street-side chats. He also takes pains to present the history of the sorts of displays that are his subject. In addition, the volume includes numerous photographs of the sites in question, often taken by the author himself. As noted by another New Books in Folkore interviewee, Luisa Del Giudice, in her review for the Journal of American Folkore: “Sciorra has vividly demonstrated why the study and practice of such material culture is important and how individual human creativity informed by a spiritual and cultural core becomes an act of both personal and community identity. These art forms may not have much social capital, but Sciorra does. As Director of Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of New York, editor (Italian American Review), blogger (“Joey Skee,” for i-Italy), noted scholar and cultural activist, Sciorra, through Built with Faith, will make a high impact beyond the disciplines of vernacular culture; art and architecture; migration and ethnic, urban, religious studies; and beyond New York City. This is definitely a carefully crafted work—that is, un lavoro ben fatto.” Cindy R. Lobel, writing for the Vernacular Architecture Forum's Buildings and Landscapes journal, is similarly effusive: “Built with Faith makes a fine contribution to the literature on landscape, material culture, immigration, ethnic studies, and urban studies. It offers important information on the kinds of approaches Italian American New Yorkers have taken toward shaping the built environment of New York through their religious and cultural practices. Sciorra documents and offers wonderful thick descriptions of Italian American mat... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices