Since 1996, when she began teaching at New Jersey City University, Edvige Giunta has been teaching two classes on memoir writing. In that time, a number of her students have had memoirs printed in publications outside the university.
“I got the class at the last minute, and it is the best class I have ever taught,” said Giunta last week.
Giunta employed her own memoir techniques recently in publishing “Writing with An Accent” (Palgrave, 2002), in which she surveys a number of Italian-American women writers, including notables like Louise DeSalvo, whose memoir Breathless combines autobiography with the exploration of public health issues, and Mary Cappello, chronicler of sexual and family politics.
“I just didn’t want to write about ‘stars,'” Giunta said, pointing out she covers earlier, lesser-known Italian-American writers.
Giunta believes Italian-American woman writers came into their own in the late 1970s and early 1980s with publication of Helen Barolini’s Umbertina and Tina De Rosa’s Paper Fish.
“Then, the movement disappeared,” Giunta said. But with the recent academic emphasis on class and gender politics in literary studies, the writers have been resurrected, Giunta said.
Giunta stressed that the body of work produced by Italian-American women is a relatively young literature that has only begun to develop in the second half of the 20th century. With her book, Giunta helps to both dispel myths about Italian-American women and show how the work fits into the lives of the writers.
“I would like to get rid of the anti-intellectual stigma associated with Italian women,” Giunta said, noting the clich