Bishop Pilla Lecture Series

Throughout the academic year, distinguished national and international scholars speak on important issues and topics relevant to Italian and Italian American culture. The lecture series brings an important cultural and intellectual aspect to John Carroll University's campus, while engaging both students and the community at large. Past guest speakers include Giuseppe f. Mazzotta, Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Italian Language and Literature, Yale University and Justice Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Lecture Series 2008

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
When 1 is 2: The Art of Alighiero e Boetti 

7:30 pm – D.J. Lombardo Student Center, Jardine Room

Paola Morsiani
Curator of Contemporary Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art

The lecture introduces and discusses the works of Italian artist Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994).  Boetti, one of the protagonists of Arte Povera of the late 1960s and 1970s, is one of the most influential artists of recent generations.   Using a variety of traditional media, the lecture examines the artist’s exploration of Western cultural conventions, from language and mathematical order to geographical representations and social organization.

Thursday, November 13, 2008
Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed and Victorien Sardou’s La Tosca

7:30 pm – D.J. Lombardo Student Center, LSC Conference Room

Luigi Ferri, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
John Carroll University

Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca (1887), upon which Giacomo Puccini based his opera in 1900, shows interesting intertextual similarities with Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed (1840-42), the novel that provided the foundation for modern Italian narrative.  This lecture analyzes such similarities and analogies, and suggests the possibility that the French playwright considered Manzoni’s masterpiece as a partial source for his work.