Join us for our first Italian-language meeting of the season. Made in Italy is a journey among food, fashion, handcraft and masterpieces that make Italians famous throughout the world.
Presented by Isabella Moriconi
Isabella was born in Roma and has been teaching in European private, public and charter schools for 10+ years. Come work on your Italian listening and speaking skills, and enjoy the sound of your bella madre lingua!
WEDNESDAY September 25, 2024
St. Clement’s Church
1501 32nd Ave S., Seattle 98144
6:00 Aperitivo* 7:30 Presentation
FREE
*For Italian meetings, attendees provide antipasti and vino to share. Please bring all shared dishes plated and ready to be served.
DANTE ALIGHIERI SOCIETY of WASHINGTON presents Decoding Italian Gestures: Understanding the Language of Hands (Italian Meeting, Live) given by Alessandra Arosio WEDNESDAY April 24, 2024
St. Clement’s Church
1501 32nd Ave S., Seattle 98144
6:00 DOORS OPEN FOR ANTIPASTI 7:30 PRESENTATION
For Italian Meetings, attendees bring the antipasti and vino to share. PLEASE bring your shared dishes already plated if possible.
Presentation Summary
Italian culture places significant emphasis on nonverbal communication, with gestures serving as an integral part of daily interactions. The presentation delves into the fascinating world of Italian gestures, exploring their significance, cultural roots, and nuanced meanings. By deciphering these nonverbal cues, we gain deeper insights into Italian communication and cultural expressions.
Biography
Alessandra Arosio, originally from Milan, Italy, pursued her passion for language by earning a master’s degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures (German and English). She then transitioned into the tech industry, where she assumed diverse roles encompassing technical writing, terminology management, cultural and market adaptations, and digital marketing.
Her career progression eventually led her to relocate to the Pacific Northwest with her husband and daughter. Since 2023, Alessandra is also the president of Il Punto, an Italian cultural association that connects people and communities through a common passion for Italian arts, culture and language.
We don’t take reservations for Italian meetings, and there is no charge. Anyone with known recent exposure to or symptoms of COVID should not attend.
Dante and his works, especially The Divine Comedy, seem to be inevitably present in writers and readers of Italian literature, from the fourteenth century to the present, even in those periods of time when the appreciation for his style was feeblest, most notably in the seventeenth century. Cultural memory is, however, highly selective, and later readers and writers responded to Dante and his legacy by tailoring him to their own contexts, especially in relation to issues of national identity, since Dante’s language was early recognized in Italy as the foundation of what Italian culture had become. For this reason, in my presentation I will explore some episodes of Dante’s reception and how they are defined by interpretative frameworks and filters through which readers and scholars have approached his work and life.
About the speaker:
Beatrice Arduini is Associate Professor of Italian and current Chair of the Department of French and Italian Studies at the University of Washington. Her research centers on Medieval Italian literature, Dante studies, manuscript culture, and textual studies. Her book, Dante’s Convivio: the Creation of a Cultural Icon, examines the tradition of this work in manuscripts and early printed editions. Her projects include a book manuscript on the lyric production of a 13th-century Tuscan poet, Monte Andrea da Firenze, and a study on representations of domestic slavery in medieval and early modern Italy. Dr. Arduini has published on these and other topics in Mediaevalia, Heliotropia, RomancePhilology, Textual Cultures, and Medioevo Letterario d’Italia.
DANTE ALIGHIERI SOCIETY of WASHINGTON presents Italian Genius from Dante to Montale
(Italian Language Presentation, on Zoom!) given by Professor Sergio Mauro
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 24, 2024
ON ZOOM
Make your reservation now to join the zoom! Please share the link above to invite others to register; for zoom security, reservations are required. Zoom Room opens at 7:00 Presentation begins 7:30
About the speaker:
Prof. Sergio Mauro was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961 to Italian parents from the province of Salerno. Doctor of Letters (USP) since 1995. From 1999 to 2013, he did 08 postdoctoral research in Italy (UNIBO, Normale di Pisa, UNISI) with 5 scholarships from the Brazilian government. Professor (retired) of Italian literature from 29/05/1986 to 04/12/2019 in UNESP (State University of São Paulo). Editor-in-chief of the journal “Revista de Letras” (since January 2010) He has given about 34 lectures on Italian and Brazilian literature at different Brazilian and international cultural institutes. He has written several scientific articles and two books: “O sorriso do carrasco” (short stories, 1994) and “O girassol enlouquecido” (novel, 2018).
Concerning the presentation on January 24, Prof. Mauro shares:
“I intend to investigate whether there really is an Italian way of being a genius in literature, from Dante to Montale. I will highlight the original way of examining the human condition and the role of the human being in the universe, particularly in Dante, Leopardi and Montale.”
Giuseppe Tassone moved to Seattle from Italy in 1993. He has been the director of the Italian Language Program of the Dante Alighieri Society of Washington since 1998 and the PLIDA coordinator since 2011. He is a language educator, coordinator, and advocate of Italian language and culture. He has a background in economics and finance (B.A. in Economics), but chooses to specialize in Italian language and culture (M.A. in Italian Studies). He has 20+ years of experience teaching, developing curricula, coordinating, testing, and assessing in public and non-profit organizations (e.g. Seattle University, University of Washington, Shoreline College). Giuseppe reviewed and/or contributed to several Italian language textbooks, such as Da Capo, Oggi in Italia, Avanti, Piazza and Sentieri. He is the author of Ricordati di me, Buongiorno Notte – Italian Films Series by Edizioni Farinelli and Un buonAffare – Italian for Business by Hackett Publishing Company available in print (2016) and e-book (2019). Giuseppe teaches at Seattle University and heads the Italian Section in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures. Personal interests are: reading, traveling, cinema, economics, politics, playing and listening to music, swimming, biking, gardening and cooking.
Roberta was born in Salerno a city located in the region of Campania in Southern Italy where in the ninth century flourished the renowned Schola Medica Salernitana; the forerunner of the modern university medical schools. She holds a Master’s Degree in Economics and Management for Arts, Culture, Media and Entertainment from the Luigi Bocconi University, and a Master’s Degree in Piano from the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Music in Milan. Roberta has been working in the field of arts management since 2008. She has served as a project manager, fundraiser and arts administrator in high-profile nonprofit organizations and music festivals in Italy. She has taught music and Italian language in middle schools, and has held lectures in performing arts management as a teaching assistant at the University of Milan and at the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala. She has performed many solo and chamber music recitals across Italy. She loves classical music, visual arts, reading, traveling, hiking and of course teaching Italian.
Giorgio is a native Italian who grew up in the outskirts of Milan. He holds various university degrees including a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He works on engineering research and development projects in the fields of aircraft performance and commercial aviation. He became passionate about teaching and sharing his knowledge of Italy in response to the welcoming and inspiring interest in the Italian language and culture he witnessed and experienced while living in the United States. Throughout the years, Giorgio has taught Italian courses as well as privately tutored business professionals and students from various age groups.
In his free time, Giorgio enjoys photography, hiking, history and mathematics, museums and fine arts, theatre performances, and traveling.
Gabriella Vagnoli was born in Pisa, Tuscany, home of the famous Leaning Tower. She grew up in a multicultural family thanks to her Brazilian mom and remembers teaching Italian for the first time as a child to her Brazilian cousins. She obtained a Laurea in English and Spanish Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi di Pisa and during her college years spent a year in the University of Reading, UK, studying mainly the works of Shakespeare. After obtaining a Certificate as a Teacher of Italian (DITALS II) at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, she has taught in a full immersion school in Florence, a children's full immersion program in Chicago and a Community College in Illinois.
Besides teaching Italian, she has obtained a BFA in Illustration at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and is a published children's book illustrator.
Tiziana was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. She has always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures, and studied French and German at the Scuola Superiore Interpreti e Traduttori in Milan, where she obtained her first Foreign Languages and Interpreter BA degree. She then pursued her MA in English and German Language and Literature at IULM, one of the most prestigious universities in Milan, Italy for Language and Communication studies.
Tiziana moved to the US in 2000 and started working in the software industry, where she applied her linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to localization and testing projects. She also took on various leadership roles and managed teams of linguists and testers across different countries and time zones. Tiziana is passionate about teaching Italian and sharing her insights into the Italian culture and lifestyle. She has taught from beginner to advanced Italian courses for the most prestigious schools in the Pacific Northwest: The Dante Alighieri Society, Seattle Language Academy and Bellevue College. She also privately tutors American business professionals who want to learn or improve their Italian. She is currently working on her Spanish, as she enjoys learning new languages and cultures.
In her free time, Tiziana likes to read, hike. cook, travel, and spend time with her family and friends.
Laura was born in Palmanova, in Northern Italy, a star shaped fortress built by the Serenissima Republic of Venice to protect the territory from the invasions of the Hapsburg and the Ottoman Empires. She was raised speaking Italian, French and Friulano (her native Northern Italian dialect). Laura received a Laurea in Linguistics from the Università di Udine where she specialized in Spanish and English literature. Since then she has lived and worked in Holland, Switzerland, Spain, England, America, and Italy. In addition to teaching in our program, Laura is authorized to cover the role of intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.
Francesca is an Italian native, born in Cremona, northern Italy. She holds a laurea in Biology from the University of Padua and Masters of Biology from Eastern Michigan University. She left Italy in 1994 and has lived in New Zealand and the United States. She has a passion for teaching her native language, as a way of maintaining and exploring the Italian language and culture with different eyes. She has taught privately and in many institutions to students of different proficiency levels groups. Francesca is interested in literature, art and design, and in her free time, she likes reading, cooking, and making ceramics.
Damiano is a native of a small countryside town in Northern Italy, about 17 miles away from Padua, a city famous among other things for its university, the fifth-oldest surviving in the world. He received his B.A. and M.A. Cum Laude in Japanese language and culture from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, while specializing in linguistics and translation. He lived in Japan for three and a half years, where he continued his studies and his sociolinguistic research on (im)politeness in language. While in Japan, he also started working as an Italian teacher, discovering his passion for conveying the beauty of the Italian language and culture abroad.
Nicla is a native of Napoli, Italy. She has a Laurea in Materie Letterarie (degree in humanities) and a Laurea in Pedagogia (degree in Education) from the Università degli Studi di Cassino. She earned her M.A in Italian and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. She has published articles and book chapters on gender and theater as well as politics and religion in Counter-Reformation Italy and in the last years, has been teaching Italian literature, language, and culture in different institutions. In addition to teaching in our program, Nicla is authorized to cover the role of esaminatrice and intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.