Skip to Main Content

Nominees and Bios for 2023 Election

The following individuals are running in the 2023 Election for the three open Executive Council positions which will begin in January 2024.

 

Rebecca Bauman

Rebecca Bauman is Associate Professor of Italian in the Department of Modern
Languages and Cultures at Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, and is affiliated
faculty in the Department of Film, Media and Performing Arts. She teaches courses
in Italian language, Italian fashion studies, Italian cinema, mafia movies, and Italian
American cultural studies. Her research interests include gender in film and
television, fashion history and theory, and comparative cinema. She has published
numerous articles and book chapters in such publications as the Journal of Italian
Cinema and Media Studies
, Italian Studies, and Film, Fashion & Consumption, and is
currently working on a monograph on fashion in Italian and Italian American
narratives of organized crime.


Bauman is a frequent presenter at IASA conferences and is currently finishing her
first term as a member of the Executive Council. She serves on IASA’s Social Media
Committee, and is Film and Digital Media Reviews editor for Italian American
Review,
the bi-annual peer reviewed journal of the John D. Calandra Italian American
Institute. This year she was awarded a Landmarks of American History and Culture
grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct two summer
workshops on the theme of Italian American public art in New York City in 2024, the
first time this grant is awarded to an Italian American subject. As a member of the
Executive Council her goal is to increase the presence of Italian American studies
within Italian studies through strategic partnerships and increased visibility in
publications, grants, and networking activities.

 

 

Michele Deramo
I am putting myself forward as a candidate for the Italian American Studies Association Executive Council. I have been a member of IASA since 2017 and have presented at IASA conferences in Washington, D.C., Chicago, New York City, Pittsburgh, and Fayetteville, as well as at its international symposiums in Rome and Lucca. During the summer of 2023, I participated in the Italian Diaspora
Studies writing seminar in Calabria and the American Association of Teachers of Italian conference in
Catania.  


I have 35 years of experience in higher education administration in the areas of service-learning, community-engaged outreach, diversity education, and strategic initiatives that advance inclusive excellence. Currently, I am the associate vice provost for diversity education and engagement at Virginia Tech. As I look forward to the final chapter of my career, I want to dedicate more time to creative and scholarly work focusing on the Italian American diaspora. This includes deliberate collaboration with others working on diaspora and displacement as well as Italian, Italian American, and Whiteness studies. 


If I were elected to the Executive Council, I would offer a unique contribution to the organization.
My administrative experience at an R1 institution includes experience in directing and executing a
national conference (Faculty Women of Color in the Academy, 2017-2020), as well as organizing annual
large-scale gatherings (600+ in-person and virtual participants) and symposiums. Additionally, my work
in the DEI space as a thought leader on my campus will contribute a broad perspective to the visioning
work of IASA in the post-George Floyd era.

 

Joanne L. Detore

Joanne L. DeTore, Ph.D. has been a member of IASA since 2010 and was a member of the EC from 2012-2018.  She has helped to grow an online presence for IASA from 75 followers to over 1000 followers on
FB in addition to growing followers on other social media platforms and has encouraged the use of Submittable for conference submissions to streamline the process.  An Associate Professor of Humanities and Communication at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, she created their first Italian-American film course and teaches literature, writing, and public relations courses.  Her creative and scholarly work has been published in Voices in Italian AmericanaItalian
Americana,
  Review Americana: A Literary JournalThe Apple Valley Review, Slow Trains Literary Journal, The Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering, Art Ciencia: Revista de Arte, Cincia e Communicacao, And/Or Literary Journal, and Florida English and in the books, Anti-Italianism: Essays on Prejudice; Fractured Feminisms: Rhetoric, Context, and Contestation; Joy, Interrupted; and Sweet Lemons: Writing with a Sicilian Accent. She is a manuscript reviewer for Gender & Society and writes book reviews for Italian Americana.  Growing the field of Italian-American Studies is very important
to DeTore. Originally from the Italian-American community in Utica, NY,  DeTore feels it is important to foster Italian-American scholarship and creative work, especially exploring the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender expression, and sexuality in the Italian diaspora.

 

                                                                                                                                                             

Marc DiPaolo

I’m Marc DiPaolo (Ph.D., English, Drew University), Associate Professor of English at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. Given my experience as Treasurer of the Working-Class Studies Association,
president of the Southwest Chapter of the American Academy of Religion, and Secretary of MELUS, I believe I would be an effective member of the IASA Executive Council. As for my background in 
Italian American Studies, I published the autofiction book, Fake Italian: An 83% True Autobiography with Pseudonyms and Tall Tales (Bordighera, 2021), edited Unruly Catholics from Dante to
Madonna
 (Scarecrow, 2013), and am working on co-editing Witches, Starships, and Wooden Boys: Fantasies and Futurisms of the Italian Diaspora for Fordham University Press. I have published articles in edited collections about the Punisher, Quentin Tarantino, and Sergio Leone, and I have presented on Tig Notaro, Sylvester Stallone, Dorothy Fontana, and Fake Italian at several MELUS (2021, 2023), IASA (2023, 2021), and MLA (2020) conferences. Over the years, I’ve become friends with many IASA members, and have increasingly dedicated my research and teaching to Italian Diaspora Studies. I feel 
increasingly welcome at IASA and invested in it. I want to deepen my commitment to the field – and to this organization – by serving IASA as a member of the EC.