The Italian summer we don’t talk about
If you’re a 2000s baby, you probably grew up with films like “The Lizzie McGuire Movie” or “Call Me by [...]
“Shark” drew blood before “Jaws”
Once again, “Shark Week” is upon us. It’s a good time to remember how we became so obsessed with these [...]
A “well-integrated” Italian?
When I first applied for my residence permit in Italy, I signed an agreement stating that I would commit to [...]
Review: Cousin Bette
An exploration of Honoré de Balzac’s feuilleton, or serialized novel Cousin Bette is apt to begin with this quote: “Women [...]
At war’s end
Like a character in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, I recently joined a British pilgrimage in “April, when its showers are sweet.” [...]
Making good trouble
Fighting incessant wind, I hold my homemade sign high above my head as I yell into the highway, “Show me [...]
Papal stories
When I found out about Pope Francis’ death on Monday, April 21, I had just dropped my daughter off from [...]
In the city of coffee
Italy is renowned for its coffee shops on every corner. This devotion to coffee, however, is taken to a whole [...]
Review: The Shipping News
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994, The Shipping News is an enchanting yet unconventional love story of [...]
Anatomy of a dream
In mid-January, I became a doctoral candidate. Formally, this means that I passed the dissertation proposal, plus the qualifying exams [...]
Goodbye, my little princess
My mom thinks time stopped when I took that plane. But it hasn’t. I’m closer to my mid-twenties than to [...]