Personal Effects

Nancy Caronia (Edited By) Nancy Caronia is a lecturer at University of Rhode Island. She teaches in the Honors Program, Gender & Women's Studies, and in the departments of English and Writing and Rhetoric. She works on issues of transnationalism and globalization in contemporary American and Anglophone ethnic literature and film. Her scholarly essays, reviews, creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Essays on Italian American Literature and Culture, New Delta Review, and Don't Tell Mama! The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2013. Her introduction to Casting Off will appear in Bordighera's reprint of DeSalvo's novel.Edvige Giunta (Edited By) Edvige Giunta is professor of English at New Jersey City University, where she teaches memoir and other literature and writing courses. She is the author of Writing with an Accent: Contemporary Italian American Women Authors and Dire l'indicibile. She is co- editor of The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture (with Louise DeSalvo); Italian American Writers on New Jersey (with Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan); Teaching Italian American Literature, Film, and Popular Culture (with Kathleen Zamboni McCormick); and Embroidered Stories: Interpreting Women's Domestic Needlework from the Italian Diaspora (with Joseph Sciorra).

• Acknowledgments ixIntroduction: "Habit of Mind" 1Nancy Caronia and Edvige Giunta MemoirLouise DeSalvo's "Even in Death, La Bella Figura": A Meditation on Honor, Respect, and the Silences That Bind 37Margaux FragosoThe Poetics of Trauma: Intertextuality, Rhythm, and Concision in Vertigo and Writing as a Way of Healing 50Peter CovinoFixing and Fictioning: Memory and Catholicism in Vertigo 62Jeana Delrosso Portrait of the Mother as a Writer and Researcher 75Julija SukysLouise DeSalvo: Essaying Memoir 86Joshua FaustyTeachingOn Vulnerability and Risk: Learning to Write and Teach Memoir as a Student of Louise DeSalvo 105Kym Ragusa Fixing Things: What Louise DeSalvo Has Taught Me about Writing 111Emily BernardDark Whiteness and Literacy without Assimilation: DeSalvo's Unlikely Narrative 117Kimberly A. CostinoMixing Bowl: On Crazy in the Kitchen, DeSalvo in the Classroom, and the Day I Got into Hunter 130Lia OttavianoFurthering the Voyage: Reconsidering DeSalvo in Contemporary Woolf Studies 140Benjamin D. HagenCultureThe Context of Louise DeSalvo's Impact: Incest in Virginia Woolf's Biography 155Mark Hussey"Thirty- seven Is the Unraveling Time" and Other Fictions of Fidelity in the Works of Louise DeSalvo 169Jenn BrandtLife Online: Skating and Breaking the Surface of the Self 179Amy Jo BurnsThe Fruits of Her Labor: Louise DeSalvo's Memoirs of Food and Family 189Mary Jo Bona and Jennifer-Ann DiGregorio KightlingerMapping the Female Ethnic Self in the Family Battleground: Vertigo and the Greek American Novel 210Theodora PatronaDeSalvo's Rialto: On Moving as a Livable Bridge 222Ilaria Serra The Knife and the Bread, the Brutal and the Sacred: Louise DeSalvo at the Family Table 233John Gennari Afterword. Crazy in the Study: Trying to Claim a Tradition in Louise DeSalvo's Accented Writing 251Anthony Julian TamburriList of Contributors 261Index 265

"A very important contribution in the field of Italian American studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, feminist studies, literary studies in general, and studies on the memoir in particular. Personal Effects explores Louise DeSalvo's work as a memoir writer, teacher, and scholar, illustrating the contribution Italian American authors can give both to Italian culture and to American culture and literature." -- -Caterina Romeo Sapienza Universita di Roma "Wide-ranging, sophisticated,and stylish, Personal Effects is both a brilliant tribute to a powerful scholar-memoirist and a significant contribution to Italian-American studies and cultural studies more generally. It is a collection to savor!" -- -Sandra Mortola Gilbert author of The Culinary Imagination "The essays in Personal Effects do more than bear witness to the extraordinary achievement of Louise DeSalvo; they extend and amplify her inquiry into the nature of self, the politics of identity, the consequences of trauma. No study of memoir, of biography, of the role of literary criticism in the understanding of our time, can be complete without this multifaceted colloquy. Like the work of DeSalvo herself, this is a book of heartfelt intelligence and brilliant passion." -- -Richard Hoffman author of Half the House, and Love & Fury "Personal Effects is a significant contribution to DeSalvo scholarship. It is a stunning example of the power of blending literary and cultural criticism with creative nonfiction." -- -Roseanne Giannini Quinn DeAnza College "With equal parts scholarship and creativity, Personal Effects penetrates the diversity and importance of DeSalvo's body of work. These thoughtful, disquieting, and insightful essays perfectly mirror the very essence of this vital American author." -- -Domenica Ruta author of With or Without You