This ever-expanding site available in both and , and configured in mobile-friendly mode accessible via cell phone, is an aggregator of pre-existing forms of knowledge as well as new textual, video, and audio material, gathered in collaboration with professors of the University of Palermo (including the Agrigento branch, Polo Territoriale), environmentalist guides, chefs, photographers, architects, local residents, etc., and co-implemented with Ph.D. students Giacomo Frazzetta and Doğa Tekin. The project was co-sponsored by the Agrigento 2025 Foundation, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Region of Sicily, the Municipality of Agrigento, the Inserra Chair (�鶹��ý����), and UCLA, with the logistical support of the Municipality of Realmonte.

The project has already been covered in other media: , , and .

Short link:

British cemetery (Siracusa)

While this history remains quite unknown to the general public in the U.S., and in Sicily it is still narrated by locals in a fragmented and often partisan way, the landscape tells powerful concrete stories of Italian defense systems developed before the Landing, Allied military structures built after it, and pre-existing places adapted to the war needs.

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Sept. 1943 Armistice location (Cassibile, SR)

Ruins of trenches, firing positions for cannons, and fuel tanks carved into the ground, as well as well-preserved cemeteries, bunkers, plaques, bomb shelters, and quarries functioning as arm deposits have revealed to Dr. Fiore a completely new way of seeing Eastern Sicily, often visited for Greco-Roman archeological sites and Baroque architecture.

 

It is a mostly silent history that is interestingly gaining voice through thematic tours such as those designed by Daniele Valvo and theater re-enactments in key spots (see ) that evoke the experience of frantically looking for a shelter against air-bombings or sadly killing a young soldier in what was a confusing war of allies turned into enemies and enemies turned into allies.

In the process, Dr. Fiore is discovering a plethora of small associations devoted to the collection of military gear (see Operation Husky organization) as well as organizations creating small museums and offering talks and debates: the memory of the event is a space of tension where nostalgia, ideology, archival research, and modern readings interweave and clash, providing rich materials for her sabbatical project.

Italian bunker (Siracusa)

Based on her sabbatical research on foodways at the time of the Allied Landing in Sicily (1943), the paper revises the narrative of the American forces feeding Sicilians through the use of eighteen interviews with direct witnesses and scholars sharing stories about the stark contrast between the local wartime food and the industrial food brought by the soldiers from the US. See webpage.

Prof. Cinotto introduced Dr. Fiore’s talk providing special insights into the impact of the landing in Italy in terms of U.S. control of the economic and socio-political sphere.��The students’ questions during the Q&A revealed a keen interest in historical issues, in methodological aspects linked to oral history, and in the encounter of cultures during wartime.

UNISG has an institutional commitment to videos about food. Its film archive directed by Dr. Gabriele Proglio, is devoted to oral history about food, food history, food practices, etc.

UNISG is a private university linked to Slow Food, the movement founded by Carlo Petrini in 1986. Focused on food and sustainability, the academic approach privileges collaborative hands-on projects ranging from cooking, cook-book writing, market visits, food history research, eco-agronomy techniques, etc.

The UNISG campus is a World-Heritage (UNESCO) site with its distinctive historical buildings, imposing towers, elegant courtyards, printing office for student-managed publications, student-tended fruit and vegetable gardens, and a unique cafeteria that largely relies on the produce cultivated on campus. All under the watchful eye of the snail, the Slow Food symbol, under no time pressure.

“Le ecoculture della Scala dei Turchi: Un sito-mappa di storie multispecie” è un progetto di ricerca digitale ideato dal Prof. Vetri Nathan e dalla Prof.ssa Teresa Fiore sulla base della teoria del Prof. Nathan di co-esistenza di varie specie e forme di vita (vegetale, animale, umana, minerale, ecc.) da narrare attraverso un sistema digitale di mappatura densa (thick-mapping).

Il progetto è stato avviato nel marzo del 2025, proponendosi come aggregatore di studi, ricerche, attività e conoscenze già realizzate e presenti nel territorio, ma non ancora collegate, proprio per riflettere sulla complessità, stratificazione ed evoluzione di un luogo iconico come la Scala dei Turchi. Per informazioni sulla fase iniziale del progetto, si veda questa pagina web. E per la seconda fase, si veda questo .

Giorno 11 luglio 2025 alle ore 10:30 presso la Villa Genuardi, sede del Polo Universitario, il progetto verrà presentato nell’ambito di un seminario con la partecipazione di ricercatori e addetti ai lavori fino ad ora abbracciati dal progetto. Il seminario sarà un ‘occasione per approfondire nozioni teoriche e applicate relative a studi multi-specie e tecnologia thick-mapping, ma anche per definire nuove sinergie in vista dell’ulteriore sviluppo del progetto in autunno. Il sito sarà definitivamente lanciato nel dicembre del 2025 e incluso nel del Prof. Nathan a UCLA.

Progetto inserito nella programmazione di Agrigento Capitale della Cultura Italiana 2025 all’interno del progetto , con il sostegno della University of California, Los Angeles (), e della �鶹��ý����, New Jersey (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies), con il contributo alla ricerca scientifica del dottorando Giacomo Frazzetta (UCLA). Si ringrazia il Polo Territoriale Universitario di Agrigento per l’ospitalità presso la propria sede in occasione della presentazione e del seminario.

PROGRAMMA

• Saluti di benvenuto del�� (Presidente del Polo Territoriale Universitario di Agrigento)
• Introduzione al progetto: Prof.ssa Teresa Fiore e
  • Teoria multispecie (cenni storici e nozioni principali)
  • Tecnica di thick-mapping attraverso la piattaforma geo-spaziale ArcGIS (descrizione base dello strumento)
  • Organizzazione specifica del sito per il progetto “Le Eco-culture della Scala dei Turchi” (illustrazione delle categorie in fieri e della visione generale)
  • Raccolta e condivisione di dati, storie, materiale audio-visivo (modalità di approccio e creazione di rete)
  • Fasi future del progetto
• Interventi:
  • e Nino Dinolfo (Visitagrigento): “Veicolare la ricchezza della Scala dei Turchi attraverso l’educazione ambientale e il turismo esperienziale: sfide e opportunità”
  • (Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche Chimiche e Farmaceutiche, UNIPA): “Il chiodo d’oro: Cicli astronomici e cambiamenti climatici nelle rocce della Scala dei Turchi”
  • (Scienze della Natura e dell’Ambiente, UNIPA): “Interazioni multispecie nei fondali della Scala dei Turchi tra la pianta sottomarina Posidonia oceanica e due specie di molluschi”
  • (Architettura, UNIPA, Agrigento e Palermo) – “Rapporto tra ambiente ed edilizia nella vicenda dell’ecomostro sulla spiaggia della Scala dei Turchi”

• Saluti di chiusura del Sindaco di Realmonte, Alessandro Pietro Mallia, e del consigliere comunale delega alla cultura, Luca Fiannaca.
• Domande e suggerimenti da parte del pubblico

Link corto:

Students working in groups during the workshop session

The talk centered on the notion of translation at large as a philosophy and practice of moving from one dimension to another, whether it’s language, culture… or family as in the case of adoptees. Indeed, both the books Prof. Fiore addressed – Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? (2011) and and Nikolai Prestia’s Dasvidania (2021) – are written by adoptees who resort to the genre of memoir to translate their experiences of loss and abandonment, as well as abuse and trauma, into stories, while translating themselves from the birth family to the adoptive one. Translators of lived experience, Winterson and Prestia, have also been published in translation. Students developed their translation of Winterson’s book and then compared them to the official publication in Italian. Prof. Fiore shared aspects of the translation of Dasvidania, which will come out in English in 2026 with Rutgers University Press in the OVOI series, as the result of a co-translation by Prof. Fiore and Daniela Chaudhary Fiore.

Students of the Translation graduate class and Prof. Fiore

“I am very grateful to Prof. D’Amore for inviting me to talk about a topic that is at the center of my current research agenda (Adoption Studies Project). It was a pleasure to meet the students as part of a workshop in which they have shown refined translation skills and a well-honed awareness about the challenges of this practice. By mere coincidence, the talk was held in the same room where, in 2024, I first introduced the Dasvidania translation project in the course of the AATI (American Association of Italian Teachers) conference. This time, it was exciting to announce that the book is now in the final stages of copyediting!” – Fiore commented. And she added: “The talk was also an opportunity to appreciate once again the breathtaking site of the the University of Catania’s Department of Humanities, a World Heritage building. The is a fascinating complex functioning like a palimpsest of several historical periods, from the Roman era in the foundations to the present with contemporary additions designed to enhance the 16th century structure rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake. A veritable work of architectural translation!”

Short link: tinyurl.com/UCTranslation

Inspired by Leonardo Sciascia’s novella ‘The American Aunt’, this article offers a new perspective on the 1943 Allied landing in Sicily, reading it through the lens of food practices and migration. Blending literary and historical analysis with the testimonies of direct witnesses of the landing, the article explores the role of food (access, products, symbolism) during late Fascism, the actual landing, and the post-1943 and post-Second World War era. The picture that emerges is a variegated landscape of experiences, pointing to starvation among the poor but also to food access for those Sicilians who lived in the countryside away from the bombarded cities, and in a Sciascia-like ironic twist, to the Sicilians’ offer of fresh flavorful food to US soldiers weary of the military pre-packaged food. The article complicates the assumption that all Sicilians were starving at the time of the landing and waiting to be fed by the American soldiers coming from the Land of Abundance, a representation created by a mixture of one-sided perspectives of the war along with decades of emigration to the United States.

Keywords: Food, Second World War, Allied Landing, Sicily, Leonardo Sciascia, Emigration, American Dream

Article’s DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/jrs.2024.17
Digital access to the journal’s article (by subscription only):

This project offers a variegated reading of the 1943 Allied Landing on the Southern coast of Sicily as part of Operation Husky through the novel perspective of food practices by interweaving accounts of food security and insecurity sourced from direct witnesses, historical scholarship, and a novella by Leonardo Sciascia addressing foodways in Sicily before, during and after WWII (read more).

This past July, Dr. Fiore (on the right) was able to visit a new documentation center about the landing in Licata that hosts a permanent collection of display boards gathering photos, letters, official reports, etc. about the Fascists era, the war period, Operation Husky, and the U.S.-controlled government set up after the liberation.

Organized in a chronological manner, the boards present scenes of military, private, cultural, and school life in the town of Licata between the late 1930s and the mid-1940s. Planned and implemented by the association Memento in collaboration with the Archeological Park of Agrigento, the center is located in a prime position in the heart of Licata, right across from an intimate museum of war memorabilia.

“I am grateful to Prof. Zangara (pictured in this photo) for introducing me to this center, sharing the story of its genesis, and illustrating its potential. Licata continues to be a key location to narrate the story of Operation Husky. Her efforts along those of the colleagues and partners she has worked with are admirable. Now the project needs further support and targeted planning to be more incisive,” Dr. Fiore remarked

Meanwhile, select documents focusing on food at this center, including photos by Philip Stern (see left), have proven to be of interest for her larger project. For more information, see .

In August, Dr. Fiore visited the in Troina. A jewel in terms of design and curatorial work, the museum hosts a precious collection of the amazing photos that the renowned Magnum photographer – arguably the greatest war photographer and innovator of photojournalism – took in Sicily in the course of Operation Husky.

The museum focuses on the Troina series, but also embraces pictures about different parts of Sicily, highlighting some of the most memorable shots taken by Capa (see bottom of this page) through the operation, while also including previously unpublished photos ().

Enhanced by incisive historical explanations mixed with quotes from Capa’s writings, and a video with original military footage, the photos constitute an important source for Dr. Fiore’s project.

“I was excited to learn that the museum in Troina worked in partnership with the NJ-based branch of the International Center of Photography, and I look forward to going through their collection to identify photos about moments of food exchange and consumption that Capa may have captured,” she commented.

This approach will continue to be at the core of Dr. Fiore’s research endeavors which aim at offering a fresh take both on military strategy and the tastes and desires of participants in the larger theater of war. Operation Husky, a massive campaign that commenced the liberation of Europe from Nazi-Fascism as the largest amphibious attack in military history up to that point, has been overshadowed by the more dramatic events of D-Day. In the collective imaginary, it is synonymous with the distribution of sweets to a struggling population by mythicized American soldiers. This project reintroduces the Landing in Sicily to the U.S. public challenging long-standing perspectives on foodways.

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Dr. Fiore applied with a proposal linked to her ongoing endeavor, “Memoria presente: The Common Spanish Legacy in Italian and Latin American Cultures,” which received NEH support in its initial stages in Summer 2021. A section of Memoria Presente is devoted to architecture: Dr. Fiore started developing it during Summer 2023. As part of the Undergraduate Research Program at �鶹��ý����, she mentored a student, Mar Arroyo Cabrera, for the production of a video on the Spanish Mission Revival architecture of �鶹��ý����, a historically uncontested space that warrants creative readings. Whimsically chosen as the style of the campus at the time of its foundation in 1908, this architectural style has acquired new meanings since the university moved from serving a primarily Italian (and Polish) population to a fast-growing Hispanic one (45% of the incoming class this year) and received the federal designation of Hispanic Serving Institution in 2016.

The will be further expanded also thanks to the scholarly materials, intellectual exchanges, and guided tours offered through the 2024 NEH Workshop. As a result, the larger project, Memoria Presente, will also be expanded by identifying the unlikely connections between places as disparate as �鶹��ý����, NJ, San Diego, CA, Ragusa (Sicily), and Veracruz (Mexico) along the mission revival and baroque style’s colonial route. By providing useful tools to address this complex cultural geography in place, the NEH Workshop will equip Dr. Fiore to design more targeted classes of Italian language and culture for Spanish speakers.

Webpage: https://contestedspaces.fitnyc.edu/
Short link: https://tinyurl.com/2024NEHFiore

The talk was included in the seminar “Transgressive Italian: An Expanded Language for the Co-existence of Differences,” taught by , Assistant Professor of Italian in the Departamento de Lenguas y Cultura. It also embraced students from Dr. Alessandra Merlo’s class on Italian Cinema and the theory seminar taught by Visiting Professor, Dr. Chloe Rutter-Jensen.

Dr. Fiore remarked: “I have presented this book on multiple occasions in the U.S. and Italy, but sharing my research in Latin America, and with trans-languaging modality that embraced Italian and Spanish as part of the exchange with the audience, has been quite special to me, especially since it may open up new spaces for collaborative academic endeavors.”

Indeed, the visit was also an opportunity to consider future synergies among faculty for curriculum expansion with an eye toward the role of cinema in the Italian curriculum as well as emigration from Italy to Colombia and vice versa, with possible shared initiatives around the Memoria Presente digital archive.

See
See book’s webpage
Short link: tinyurl.com/FioreAndes

Dr. Teresa Fiore (Professor of Italian and Inserra Endowed Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies) was invited to give a keynote speech at the graduate student conference of the Italian Department of Rutgers University held on Nov. 17-18, 2023. This year, the topic of this bi-annual conference organized by the Italian Graduate Society was Dr. Fiore’s keynote was titled “Masking as Re-Invention: Secrets and Lies in Italian-Language Texts about Migration and Adoption.” In exploring the works of such writers as Igiaba Scego, Amir Issaa, Espérance Hakuzwimana, and Nikolai Prestia, the talk brought together Fiore’s main research field, Migration Studies, and the new field she is now focusing on, Critical Adoption Studies (Dr. Fiore is currently teaching an Honors class titled “Narrating Adoption: Choice, Chance and Circumstance”).

Short url: tinyurl.com/RUMasks