Etta’s experiences teaching Italian university students as a William J. Fulbright scholar, teaching US university students abroad, and her onsite research in Italian archives feed her love for All Things Italy. Gain a taste by subscribing to her newsletter and blog and following on social media.
Riding the Holiday Waves: Writing for Health
Hello, friends. How have the first of the holidays been for you? Have the emotions of 2020's elections and COVID caused these past few days to seem calm, by comparison? Or are you riding those...
The Past Hauntingly Repeats Itself? National Elections of 1844
George Perkins Marsh portrait engraving by H. B. Hall, reprinted in Life & Letters (1888) Title Page of Life & Letters of George Perkins Marsh (1888) As presidential election news was...
Coffee Passions: One of These Things is Not Like the Other
Double espresso and breakfast cookie in Rome Cappuccino from Starbucks, small One afternoon this week my desk work demanded a break. A good strong coffee called to...
Food Memories: Utopian Visions?
I missed June's blog. I'm making up for it by referring here to a short blog that appeared elsewhere last month. I wrote "Koulourakia Cravings" for a website called Historians Cooking the Past. I, like...
Cancelled!
As Italy crawls back to life, many of us mourn the loss of trips planned and cancelled. This week-after-semester's-end at the university often finds me in flight across the Atlantic. For most of the last...
A Privileged Perspective: On Escaping A Stricken Field
Cover of 1940 edition of Martha Gellhorn's A Stricken Field In January, reading Anne Boyd Rioux’s review essay of Martha Gellhorn’s A Stricken Field, I was intrigued enough to order a...
A Valentine’s and Presidents’ Day Book: Precious and Adored
Cover of Laskey and Ehrenhalt's book, Precious and Adored Here's a book suited for both Valentine's and Presidents' Day. No, it's not about Abigail and John Adams. Nor is it yet...
American Literature, Science and STEM Spots
Fried's recent biography of Benjamin Rush, early American "man of science" Mel Ulm's recent review of Stephen Fried's biography of Benjamin Rush prompted me to revisit my writing and research on...
Timothy Miller on Communes in America, 1975-2000
For anyone interested in alternative communities in the US, Tim Miller's book on the last quarter of the 20th century is a thorough and accessible read. Miller started studying and writing about communal life as...
Traveling to Monasteries: One Part of a Larger Journey
Last month, I interviewed Paul Green, who left his job and took off on a journey to seventeen Trappist monasteries in the US. The journey resulted in a photo book, Silence is Spoken Here, but...
Traveling to Trappist Monasteries: An Interview with Paul Green
Tina Moore, at one of many campfires she and Paul Green shared during their journey What if your partner or spouse asked you to quit your job so that you could...
First Lady Rose Cleveland and Bishop’s Wife Evangeline Whipple: Later Vocations in Italy
Who knew that former US First Lady Rose Cleveland moved to the Tuscan town of Bagni di Lucca, Italy? Or that she lived there with Evangeline Whipple, the widow of an Episcopal Bishop? Intrigued? Historians...