It is argued that, in the case analyzed here, local meaning making activities connect with macro social processes through the negotiation, within the constraints of local practices, of the position and roles of the ethnic group in the wider social space. However, the narrative activities that occur within the club also articulate aspects of the wider social context. The analysis centers on a number of topically linked narratives to argue that these texts have a variety of functions linked to the roles and relationships negotiated by individuals within the club and to the construction of a collective identity for the community. It explores how narrative activity is shaped by and shapes in unique ways the local context of interaction in a community of practice, an Italian American card-playing club, but also illustrates how the storytelling events that take place within this local community relate to wider social processes. 'This article focuses on the inter-relations between storytelling and micro and macro contexts. While reading them, I felt as though I was sitting around the table, in the basement kitchen of course, where such scholarly friends are allowed to eat and drink but who would never qualify as “company.” As was the face-to-face interactions during the FIAC conference itself, the collection is, taken together but not as whole, a noisy celebration of melodious cacophony. What brings these all too thinly disguised subjects together that cleverly masquerade as merely about Italian America and Italian Americans but which are actually boundless? After careful reading, it appears to me that their strongest commonality is the love of the subject, and in many cases, each other’s work. Most difficult for me was crafting this introduction to what is a most eclectic collection of essays by many of my old, and a few new, friends, and colleagues. Peter Carravetta, D’Amato Chair in Italian and Italian American Status at Stony Brook University did the heavy lifting in organizing the event, and I was honored with the intellectually challenging task of organizing and lightly editing its proceedings. The First Annual Forum in Italian American Criticism at which internationally renowned scholars were invited to comment on “The Status of Interpretation in Italian American Studies” was by all accounts a resounding success.

Discografia di giorgio vanni doppiatore