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The New York Folklore Society (NYFS) seeks applications for a Folklorist (4/5 time). This position is contingent upon grant funding and will begin upon confirmation of grant support (Projected May 1, 2008). The New York Folklore Society is a professional service organization dedicated to fostering the study, promotion, and continuation of folk arts, folklore, and folklife in New York State. It works with a diverse constituency of folklorists, ethnomusicologists, tradition bearers, community scholars, and cultural organizations to strengthen folk and traditional arts scholarship throughout New York State. The New York Folklore Society works in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts to administer technical assistance funds for folk and traditional arts. It also pursues an active folk archives program, offers ongoing technical assistance programs, organizes an annual conference on a theme relating to folk arts, publishes the bi-annual journal, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, and pursues special projects as they arise. Responsibilities: The Folklorist serves as the primary program designer and program delivery person for technical assistance initiatives. The Folklorist must possess at least a master’s degree in folklore, ethnomusicology, or a related discipline. A commitment to applied approaches and evidence of scholarship are essential. S/he must possess superior communication skills and excellent writing skills, with experience in interacting with non-profit organizations and their constituents. Spanish language facility is a plus. The ability to work independently on concurrent projects is essential. S/he must be willing to travel extensively within New York State. Specific responsibilities include: Plan and execute a community scholar field school to take place in summer 2008. Along with a project ethnomusicologist, facilitate a series of workshops on specific topics relating to traditional music and musicians in New York State (marketing, recording, legal issues, working within school settings) to be completed by close of 2008. Serve as Project Director for a comprehensive Latino documentation initiative which includes both archival and ethnographic documentation (pending receipt of funding). This initiative will result in a conference and publications in print and on the web. Provide folklore services for the Capital Region of New York State, including ethnographic documentation and program planning. Provide ongoing facilitation of services, including mentoring and professional development, forums, and other opportunities for the field of folk and traditional arts. This is a 32 hour position, with benefits. As the offices of the New York Folklore Society are located in Schenectady, NY, some job duties will have to be performed on site.

Old Songs Contra Dance
Old Songs, Inc.
8:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Old Songs Community Arts Center, 37 S. Main St., Voorheesville, NY, 518/765-2815, oldsongs@oldsongs.org
Cost: $10
Contra dance to live music with Fennig’s All-Stars and caller Gail Griffith. Wear clean, soft-soled shoes. No partner needed. Beginner's session, 7:30.

Syracuse Vocal Ensemble: “ Land of the Midnight Sun — Music from Finland”
3:00 p.m.
Presbyterian Church, 24 Park Place, Geneva, NY
Cost: $12 general admission, $5 Hobart & William Smith students, $10 seniors/students (non-HWS).
In recent years, the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble has presented programs devoted to single countries, such as Estonia, Japan, and Ireland. This theme-by-country motif continues with this concert of music from Finland. Choral music is immensely popular throughout all of Scandinavia, but perhaps nowhere more than in Finland, where vocal art music and folk songs together form an extraordinary array of superb choral repertoire. The program selections will include several charming folk arrangements, works of Jean Sibelius and Einojuhani Rautavaara, and the premiere performance of a newly commissioned work by Finnish composer Olli Kortekangas.

The Gotham Center presents the latest program in its History Forum series
City of Water: A Short Documentary and Panel Discussion about the Future of New York’s Waterfront
6:30 p.m.
Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street
Free. Seating is limited.
Admittance will be on a first come, first served basis, no reservations.
For more information: 212-817-8474
Join us for a screening and panel about the future of New York City’s waterfront. This short film features interviews with public officials, environmentalists, academics, community activists, recreational boaters, and everyday New Yorkers. They discuss the diverse, vibrant waterfront at a time when the shoreline is changing faster than at any other time in New York’s history. Interviewees include former Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, US Representative Nydia Velazquez, MacArthur Fellow Majora Carter, Sandy Hook Pilots Captain Andrew McGovern, and many others. The panel, following the screening, will feature William Kornblum, Professor of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center; Roland Lewis, President, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance and Kent Barwick, President, Municipal Art Society.

The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY presents the
“Documented Italians” Film and Video Series
Spring 2008
“Watch the Pallino” (2007), 42 min.
Stephanie Foerster, dir.
Screenings takes place at the Graduate School of Journalism, 230 West 41st Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, Room 308, Manhattan
Free and open to the public.
Presentation begins at 6 p.m.
Seating is Limited
Building management requires people attending events after business hours to pre-register with the Calandra Institute by calling (212) 642-2094. You will need to show a photo ID to the building’s concierge.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Italian immigrants found jobs in the coalmines in the rural town of Toluca, Illinois. On Sundays afternoons, the Italian miners and their families gathered to play the game of bocce, competing for a bottle of wine or wheel of cheese. Today, Toluca maintains this convivial spirit by hosting, during the Labor Day weekend, what is arguably the largest bocce tournament of its kind in the country and probably one of the most raucous. “Watch the Pallino” uncovers the history of Toluca’s passion for bocce, and follows avid bocce players and organizers over the course of the daylong tournament, all the way to the finals. This documentary film showcases how the Italian game of lawn bowls became a small town passion in middle America.
Post-screening discussion with the director led by Joseph Sciorra, Calandra Institute.
This film and video series is co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism (CUNY) and the National Italian American Foundation , in conjunction with the Pesaro Film festival’s “New Italian-American Cinema.“

Polish Community Center presents
Fish Dinners
4-8 p.m.
Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave. Ext., Albany, NY 12205, 518-456-3995

Genesee Country Village & Museum presents
NATIONAL HISTORY DAY Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Road, Mumford, NY 14511 (Just 20 miles southwest of Rochester and 45 miles east of Buffalo), 585-538-6822
Genesee Country Village & Museum hosts the Genesee Valley Regional Competition of National History Day for students in middle and high school. Students compete in categories ranging from documentaries to exhibits and performances. First- and second-place winners advance to the state finals in Cooperstown. The public is welcome to view student entries after judging is completed at noon. An awards ceremony will begin at 1 p.m. Call 585-538-6822, for more information.

Polish Community Center presents
Polka Dance with Lenny Gomulka
3-7 p.m.
Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave. Ext., Albany, NY 12205, 518-456-3995

SUNY Albany Goes Grassfed and Local
SUNY Albany hosts the lecture: The $64 Dollar Question: Bringing Sustainable, Humane Meat to a Chaotic World by Dr. Shannon Hayes
7:30 p.m. Dining Stage Area, lower level of the Campus Center, University of Albany, NY
For more information, contact Mary Ellen Mallia, Director of Environmental Sustainability, 518/956-8120, or MMallia@uamail.albany.edu
As stories about the animal rights and health abuses of the Hallmark Meat Packing Company jam newswires, students at SUNY Albany are facing a new option in their campus dining facilities: locally raised, grassfed meats. “Americans are growing increasingly worried about the quality and sustainability of the meat we are serving our families, and it’s time that people learn about the healthy, humane alternative,” says Dr. Shannon Hayes of Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Schoharie County. “The American public doesn’t have to accept that our food should come from abused animals living in deplorable, unhealthy conditions.” Indeed, a number of Upstate New York Farms are producing meat, poultry, eggs and dairy from healthy animals that are raised on organic pastures, and their products are now being made available to SUNY Albany students. To celebrate the start of their new farm-direct initiative, Dr. Shannon Hayes, author of The Grassfed Gourmet and The Farmer and the Grill, will lecture on sustainable, humane meat production.

Lecture: Marianne Hirsch: The Generation of Postmemory
7:30 p.m.
Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Warren Hunting Smith Library, Pulteney Street, Geneva Room, Geneva, NY
Cost: Free
Do photographs act as testimonial objects between today and yesterday, this generation and previous ones, memory and postmemory, personal and cultural recollection, gender and generation? Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director, Institute for Research on Women and Gender of Columbia University, Marianne Hirsch will look at postmemory and the place of photographs as a medium of transmission of memories from one generation to the next. Postmemory describes the relationship of the second generation to powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their birth but that were nevertheless transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right. Focusing on the remembrances of the Holocaust, Marianne Hirsch elucidates the generation of postmemory and its reliance on photography as a primary medium of trans-generational postmemory, she examines the role of the family as a space of transmission and the function of gender as an idiom of remembrance. Author of the forthcoming book, Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of a Czernowitz in Jewish Memory and History (with Leo Spitzer) and her book-in-progress The Generation of Postmemory: Gender, Visuality and the Holocaust, Marianne Hirsch also edited Gender and Cultural Memory, Special Issue of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Fall 2002) and earlier the well known book Conflicts in Feminism (with Evelyn Fox Keller).

The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY presents
Writers Read Series Spring 2008:
“Verba volant, scripta manent”
Emanuel De Pasquale reads from Writing Anew: New and Selected Poems.
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 W. 43rd St., 17th floor (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
Free
Presentation begins at 6 p.m.
Light refreshments will be served.
Building management requires people attending events after business hours to pre-register with the Calandra Institute by calling (212) 642-2094. You will need to show a photo ID to the building’s concierge.
Emanuel di Pasquale’s Writing Anew: New and Selected Poems (Bordighera, 2007) spans forty years of his work. Di Pasquale poetry is connected to his Sicilian childhood, the open humanity of the Sicilian family as it reflects not only “local” human emotions, but a humanity that connects and reaches out. The work is alert to the workings of the human heart and its connection to nature. Stylistically, di Pasquale’s work is deeply lyrical and reachable. His poetry celebrates life, the divinity of each living thing: the open eyes of a child, the open wings of a bird, the hurricane in the human tear. For di Pasquale, all is family and deeply alive: fish and fowl, beast and human.
“Emanuel di Pasquale writes with reverence and wonder, like some Adam first laying eyes on beast and tree, bestowing names upon them. In a time when most poets are shedding the dullest gloom, di Pasquale is one in a thousand...All in all, I find di Pasquale an astonishing and delightful poet, a visionary miraculously set down in New Jersey, and a true original.” —X. J. Kennedy

“History in Details: Conservation of Horse-Drawn Vehicles”
6:30 p.m.
Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Road, Mumford, NY 14511
Admission: Free
No registration is required. Please call 585-538-6822 for more information.
Genesee Country Village & Museum is proud to offer a lecture on carriage conservation and preservation given by Merri Ferrell. The presentation will take place in the Meeting Center auditorium, lasting approximately 40 minutes. Ferrell, former curator of the carriage collections at Stony Brook and well known carriage consultant and historian, will be at the museum for a week in March to evaluate the carriage collection housed on the museum grounds. She is generally recognized as one of the leading experts on horse-drawn vehicles in the Untied States. As such, she has consulted with museums and private collections since 1993 with a client list that includes the Henry Ford, Shelburne and Adirondack Museums. Ferrell is currently employed by the Daugh Corporation as the executive manager of Henry Morgan’s former estate.

The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library presents the
Live! Kevin & Katie McKrell
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Crandall Public Library, 251 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801
Cost: Free
For more information, call 518/792-6508.
Father/daughter duo presents hard-hitting, witty and thought-provoking Celtic-based songs with tight vocal harmonies and high-energy performances. First of 4 free concerts presented by the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in downtown Glens Falls, made possible by NYSCA-Folk Arts.
See also March 27, April 10, and April 24 events.

Polish Community Center presents
Polish-American Buffet
5-9 p.m.
Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave. Ext., Albany, NY 12205, 518-456-3995

Author Reading from
How Can I Keep Singing?: Pete Seeger
6 p.m.
Tamiment Library, NYU, 70 Washington Square South, 10th Floor, New York
Cost: Free
For more information, contact Gail Malmgreen, 212/998-2630 or e-mail wrtgsw@unm.edu
Biographer David Dunaway will be reading from his updated biography on Pete Seeger, New York folk singer and activist. He will sign books following the reading.

FINGER LAKES ARTS TRAIL PROGRAM The Finger Lakes Arts Trail Program helps to promote arts and cultural heritage to both year round Finger Lakes residents and seasonal visitors. The area encompassed represents most of central and western NY and is specifically being expanded to include Livingston and other counties this year. The program consists of: 1) A trail map designed as a rack brochure; 50,000 copies are slated for printing and placement in thruway rest stops, brochure racks across the region, relocation packages, chambers of commece, museums and more; and 2) A web site featuring the trail map, with a built in page for each participant with links to individual sites and other information. This program includes the following counties: Cayuga, Chemung, Livingston, Monroe, Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, Wayne and Yates. Listing categories for the program include: Artist/Studio, Museums/Galleries, Theatres (opera houses, drive-ins, movies), Performing Arts, Festivals, Arts Business, Arts Organizations, Culinary Arts, and Hospitality. Cost/How to Join: The cost for individual artists with studio or business is $55/each. Arts organizations, cultural groups, restaurants, wineries, lodging and chamber businesses are $110/each. Application forms are available on the artstrail website. The deadline has been extended until April 4, 2008. Contact: Sarah Britting, at 315/789-1671 or at slbritting@aol.com Mary Beth Springmeier, Executive Director, Phelps Community Historical Society, who is managing the Finger Lakes Arts Trail Program. Phone: 315/548-4940; email: histsoc@fltg.net; or visit www.fingerlakesartstrail.org.

Genesee Country Village & Museum presents
SAP, SYRUP & SUGAR 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Road, Mumford, NY 14511 (Just 20 miles southwest of Rochester and 45 miles east of Buffalo), 585-538-6822
Cost: Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for youth (ages 4-16) and FREE for children 3 and younger and GCV&M members. Check-in is at the admission tunnel.
Visitors will experience interpreted talks of history, science and natural history as they take self-guided walks through the sugar bush. Demonstrations of modern and19th-century sugaring techniques and tastings will make it a sweet treat event for the whole family!

Don’t miss the popular pancake and sausage breakfast that will be available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Meeting Center. Fee is $6 for adults, $4 for youth (ages 5-10) and $1 for children (ages 2-4). Reservations requested for breakfast but walk-ins are welcome! Please call 585-538-6822, ext. 262 for more information.

Then, join us in the Meeting Center lounge to complete your own Sugar Passport Puzzle. Have fun as you create toy oxen to take home, learn to stencil “sweet” maple leaves, judge by taste the varieties of maple syrup and listen to a sweet tale in the “Sugar Bush Story Corner.” There will be a craft in the art gallery and a chance to taste what’s cooking in Jones Farm and Livingston-Backus House.
Other dates: March 22, March 29, and March 30.

Patrick Ball — Celtic Harp & Story
Old Songs, Inc.
8:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Old Songs Community Arts Center, 37 S. Main St., Voorheesville, NY, 518/765-2815, oldsongs@oldsongs.org
Cost: $17/adults; $5/ages 12 and under
Master of the wire-strung Irish harp and compelling storyteller.

Ambition Café to Host THE BAREFOOT BOYS for Arts Night CD Release Party
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Ambition Café, 154 Jay Street, Schenectady, NY
For more information, call 518/346-7008
The New York Folklore Society will sponsor a performance and CD release party with folk music trio “The Barefoot Boys” on Friday, March 21, from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m., at Ambition Café, located at 154 Jay Street in downtown Schenectady. This performance is part of “Arts Night,” a collaborative venture highlighting the Electric City’s Arts and Entertainment District.

The Barefoot Boys (Rich Bala, Tom White, and Rick Hill) perform authentic, traditional folk music that weaves a tale of living history about people and their heritage. Their songs come from the waterways, lumber camps, farms, and homes of those who helped shape the legacy of our folk culture. The Barefoot Boys perform throughout the Northeastern United States with a wide variety of instruments, including guitar, harmonica, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, concertina and the dulcimer. Their newest CD, Sweetwater Passage, plays homage to the inland waterways of the Hudson Valley region, and includes the songs and tunes of boatmen who worked the canals and rivers of New York State. The performance of the Barefoot Boys on March 21st will highlight these tunes, as well as offer a sampling of the rest of their repertoire.

Genesee Country Village & Museum presents
SAP, SYRUP & SUGAR 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Road, Mumford, NY 14511 (Just 20 miles southwest of Rochester and 45 miles east of Buffalo), 585-538-6822
Cost: Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for youth (ages 4-16) and FREE for children 3 and younger and GCV&M members. Check-in is at the admission tunnel.
See March 16 for more information.
Other dates: March 16, March 29, and March 30.

The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY presents the
The Philip V. Cannistraro Seminar Series in Italian American Studies
Spring 2008
Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women at Work
Laura E. Ruberto, Berkeley City College
John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 W. 43rd St., 17th floor (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
Free and open to the public.
Presentation begins at 6 p.m.
Light refreshments will be served.
Building management requires people attending events after business hours to pre-register with the Calandra Institute by calling (212) 642-2094. You will need to show a photo ID to the building’s concierge.
Revisited from a feminist perspective, the work of Italian cultural theorist Antonio Gramsci offers insights into the relationship between the history of Italian emigration and contemporary immigration to Italy, particularly in relation to the representation of women's work. In her book Gramsci, Migration, and the Representation of Women’s Work in Italy and the U.S. (Lexington Books, 2007), Laura Ruberto underscores the importance of Gramsci's ideas as she examines representations of immigrant women workers, focusing on rice work and paid domestic labor in Italy, and cannery labor and unwaged housework in the U.S. Through an interdisciplinary study of novels, films, testimonials, photographs, and other forms of cultural representation, Ruberto shows how migrant women workers take part in the development of what Gramsci calls national popular culture, even as they are excluded from dominant cultural narratives.

The Gotham Center presents the latest program in their History Forum series:
Gotham History Blotter Reading and Book Signing
6:30 p.m.
9th Floor, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street
Free. Seating is limited.
Admittance will be on a first come, first served basis, no reservations.
For more information, call 212/817-8474.
Come celebrate the Gotham Center’s recently introduced new section on their website — The Gotham History Blotter. The Blotter’s mission is to introduce readers to something new about the city and its past. Please join several recent contributors for a reading and book signing:

• Morton Zachter, author of the award-winning Dough: A Memoir
  
• Harold Schechter, author of The Devil’s Gentleman: Privilege, Poison and the Trial that Ushered in the Twentieth Century
  
• Benjamin Feldman, author of Butchery on Bond Street: Sexual Politics and the Burdell-Cunningham Case in Antebellum New York
  

The Society for Applied Anthropology: 68th Annual Meeting
Memphis Downtown Marriot Hotel
For the full program visit: http://www.sfaa.net/sfaa2008/sfaa2008prelim.pdf
Applied anthropologists play an important role in identifying and understanding issues that confront contemporary organizations and societies and developing solutions to resolve them. Prominent anthropologists and other social scientists from across the country and around the world will be discussing critical social issues and concerns, including terrorist recruitment, housing foreclosures, immigration, war in Iraq, infant and child health care, climate change, and community development initiatives in the Memphis area.

This year’s theme “The Public Sphere and Engaged Scholarship: Challenges and Opportunities for Applied Anthropology” will highlight the specific contributions of applied anthropologists and other social scientists in the public sphere. This meeting will showcase social scientists’ efforts in shaping public policy and improving people’s lives through direct action and community advocacy.

Online registration and travel and tour information are available the SFAA 2008 meeting web page.

The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library presents the
Live! Sara Milonovich & Greg Anderson
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Crandall Public Library, 251 Glen Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801
Cost: Free
For more information, call 518/792-6508.
Stellar fiddle, superb instrumentals and tight vocal harmonies on delightful Celtic and roots-based originals by this vibrant and energizing duo. Second of 4 free concerts this Springs presented by the Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library, in downtown Glens Falls, made possible by NYSCA-Folk Arts.
See also March 13, April 10, and April 24 events.

Egg-stravaganza
presented by Dutchess County Arts Council Folk Arts Program
2:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Muddy Cup Coffee House, 305 Main Street, Poughkeepsie, NY 12401
Cost: free
For more information, contact 845-454-3222 or padema@artsmidhudson.org
Egg-stravaganza, a participatory, multi-cultural program, highlights ways that different cultural groups living in the Mid-Hudson Valley use eggs as food, as artistic vessel, and as symbol. In addition to interacting with practitioners of various cultures’ egg-centric traditions, guests will be able to make a cascarone or paint a colored egg to take home. Visitors are welcome to come and go at this family friendly event. Admission is free and open to the public.

2008 Organization of American Historians (OAH) Annual Meeting:
Bringing Us All Together
Hilton New York, 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas, New York City
The 101st annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians will answering a call to bring us all together. The last generation or so of scholarship in American history has excavated the experiences and concerns of a wide array of Americans. Our field now advances a far more expansive definition than ever before of what it means to live an American life. We not only know about people of many genders and races, we see class and region as integral dimensions of American identity. Scholars writing in languages other than English and living outside the United States are also valued members of the community of American historians. Register on-line at the OAH website.

Genesee Country Village & Museum presents
SAP, SYRUP & SUGAR 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Genesee Country Village & Museum, 1410 Flint Hill Road, Mumford, NY 14511 (Just 20 miles southwest of Rochester and 45 miles east of Buffalo), 585-538-6822
Cost: Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for youth (ages 4-16) and FREE for children 3 and younger and GCV&M members. Check-in is at the admission tunnel.
See March 16 for more information.
Other dates: March 16 and March 22.

Polish Community Center presents
Polishfest! With Jimmy Sturr & Rymanowski Brothers
3-7 p.m.
Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave. Ext., Albany, NY 12205, 518-456-3995
Cost: $15 advance/$17 at door — For advance tickets, send to Tom Raymond, 45 West Sand Lake Road, Wynanskill, NY 12198 or call 518/283-0129.
Polish Dance with 17-time Grammy winner, Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra with his special guests The Rymanowski Brothers Orchestra.

The Alliance of NYS Arts Organizations announces
NATIONAL ARTS ADVOCACY DAY in Washington, D.C.
The 21st annual Arts Advocacy Day is the only national event that brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations, along with hundreds of grassroots advocates from across the country, to underscore the importance of developing strong public policies and appropriating increased public funding for the arts.
LEARN how to lobby congress.
NETWORK with other attendees from your state and across the country.
BE HEARD by your members of Congress when you visit them to make the case for the arts and arts education.
Advocacy Day Highlights:

• March 31: 21st Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy
  Daniel Pink is a best-selling author and an expert on innovation, competition, and the changing world of work.
  
• March 31: Emerging Arts Leaders Networking Reception
  
• April 1: Congressional Arts Breakfast Hear from members of Congress and celebrity guests.
  

View the schedule, register, and book your hotel at the Americans for the Arts web page.

Call for Proposals for the Interdisciplinary Conference: HERITAGE: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE October 3-4, 2008 Cooperstown, NY Proposals must be received by April 1. Proposals are now being accepted for papers to be presented at the upcoming conference “Heritage: Past, Present, and Future,” which will be held October 3-4, 2008, in Cooperstown, New York. This interdisciplinary conference marks the centennial of the birth of Louis C. Jones, and explores his legacy in the field of heritage preservation. Presentations should explore the history, current state, and/or future of the heritage preservation field, with special emphasis on the ideals espoused by Dr. Jones including the perpetuation of traditional craft, study of material culture, and commitment to the common folk. Submissions are encouraged from individuals working in all areas of heritage preservation, including museums, archives, historic preservation, documentary film, public archeology, and folklore. Proposals that directly address Dr. Jones’s pioneering contributions are strongly encouraged, as are those that explore new ways to not only preserve elements of the past but to make them accessible and relevant to audiences today. The conference is co-sponsored by the Cooperstown Graduate Program, a master’s degree program in history museum studies founded by Dr. Jones in 1964 and affiliated with the State University of New York College at Oneonta and the New York State Historical Association, as well as its alumni organization, the Cooperstown Graduate Association. The New York State Historical Association, which will host the conference at its Fenimore Art Museum, was directed by Louis C. Jones from 1947 to 1972. Proposals are invited for 20-minute presentations, although panels, workshops, films or other alternative formats will also be considered. Please list any audio-visual equipment or other needs at the conclusion of the proposal. The Cooperstown Graduate Program will not be able to pay travel costs or honoraria for speakers, although registration fees for the conference will be waived. Send a one-page proposal and brief curriculum vitae, including telephone numbers and email address, in Microsoft Word 2004 format to falkcg@oneonta.edu. Hard copies can be sent to Cynthia Falk, Cooperstown Graduate Program, P.O. Box 800, Cooperstown, New York 13326.

Call for Papers Neapolitan Postcards The Canzone Napoletana as Transnational Subject March 20-21, 2009 Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2008. The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute (Queens College, CUNY, USA) and the International Centre for Music Studies (Newcastle University, UK), in collaboration with the Archivio Sonoro della Canzone Napoletana (RAI, Naples, Italy), announce a two-day conference dedicated to the Neapolitan song. The conference will be held in Manhattan on March 20-21, 2009. The organizers see this conference as a unique opportunity to address the relatively unknown transnational aspects of the Neapolitan song. The canzone napoletana has been one of the first international popular musics of the modern era, traveling beyond the city of Naples and the borders of Italy. Its success was due, to a large degree, to Italian immigrants in the New World who composed, performed, recorded, sold, and consumed the music in the forms of sheet music, piano rolls, 78 rpm recordings, and performances. Classic songs like “Core ngrato” (1911), “Senza Mamma” (1925) and “A cartulina ‘e Napule” (“Neapolitan Postcard,” 1927) were composed and introduced in New York City; the Piedigrotta Neapolitan Song Festival was held also in Harlem during the 1920s. The histories of composers and singers like Francesco Pennino (1880-1952) and Gilda Mignonette (1890-1953) have been all but lost. During this era of mass immigration, the larger American public was also consuming the Neapolitan song at the same time Italian immigrants were victimized as racialized others. In addition, non-Italian immigrant performers added Neapolitan songs to their repertoires. In Argentina, artists adapted Neapolitan melodies to the tango’s rhythms, as did Carlos Gardel with his 1931 hit song “Como se canta en Nápoles.” Over the course of the twentieth century, singers and musicians such as Charles Aznavour, Count Basie, Enrico Caruso, Mario Merola, Elvis Presley, Caetano Veloso, Frank Zappa, and others would record and further disseminate the Neapolitan song internationally. Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to: critical biographies of composers, lyricists, and performers like the Neapolitan song as a source of “ethnic identity,” outside of Italy; the role of aesthetics, taste, and nostalgia; gendered readings of the Neapolitan song; cultural and economic histories of the recording industry, publishing houses, and neighborhood stores; the transnational relationships vis-à-vis the Neapolitan song between Naples, New York, Buenos Aires, and other points in the Italian diaspora; old and new “contamination” and “hybridization” of the genre; the Neapolitan song in literature and film; issues concerning documentation and archiving; and new approaches to the Neapolitan song in Italy. The symposium organizers will entertain suggestions of panel discussions with contemporary performers, film screenings, and performances. The official language of the conference will be English. Papers should last no longer than twenty minutes, including audio and visual illustrations. Abstracts (up to 250 words, plus a note on audio-visual requirements, and a brief curriculum vitae) should be sent, by email as Rich Text Format (.rtf) files, by May 1, 2008, to both Goffredo Plastino (goffredo.plastino@ncl.ac.uk) and Joseph Sciorra (joseph.sciorra@qc.cuny.edu), to whom other enquiries may also be addressed. Abstracts should clearly display the knowledge of previous research and should indicate theoretical perspectives. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously through peer review and authors may expect to be advised of their acceptance or otherwise by August 1, 2008. The conference will result in a publication of refereed essays from papers delivered.

The Coby Foundation announces a new grant initiative: For exhibitions of textile and fashion collections at museums that have not mounted such exhibitions in the past three years. The Foundation is offering planning and implementation grants, and the deadline for inquiries is April 30, 2008. Funding is limited to non-profit organizations in the Mid-Atlantic and New England. The Foundation is welcoming preliminary inquiries leading to a formal application. The Coby Foundation is offering a limited number of two-stage grants to art and history museums with significant collections of costumes or textiles. Institutions must have an annual operating budget of at least $500,000 and not more than $50 million. Support will be in the form of exhibition planning grants for up to $50,000 and exhibition implementation grants for up to $100,000. In order to qualify for funding, applicant may not have mounted a significant exhibition of items (25 or more) from its textile collection in the past three years. If the collection comprises both costumes and textiles, if an institution has mounted a textile exhibition in the past three years, it may still apply for support of a costume project, and vice versa. If a museum has textiles in more than one department—e.g., African textiles in the African art department and American textiles in the decorative arts department—the department that has not mounted an exhibition may submit an application. Applicants should first submit a preliminary inquiry and then, upon receipt of a positive response, a formal application. For more information, visit the website: http://www.cobyfoundation.org/new.html.

ATTENTION ARTISTS! South Bristol Cultural Center is issuing a call for Artists to participate in its Art at the Barn Festival. The event will be held on May 31st and June 1st on the grounds of the Cultural Center at 5323 Seneca Point Road in Canandaigua, NY. Indoor and outdoor spaces are available for this juried show which will showcase fifty of the area’s top artists and craftspeople. Best of Show winner will receive $50.00 and a free booth rental in 2009. Applications are available online at www.southbristolculturalcenter.org, (phone 585-396-5950). The applications deadline is March 10, 2008.

The Jewish Museum of Maryland is offering paid and unpaid graduate and/or undergraduate Collections, Exhibitions, and Archival internships for Spring and/or Summer 2008. JMM interns work closely with museum professionals on varied collections and exhibitions projects to gain insight into the workings of the museums. Tasks include, but are not limited to: exhibition and collection research, processing archival collections, object photography, cataloging collections, data entry, digitizing photographic collections, gallery preparation, and artifact handling. Candidates must be able to handle objects with extreme care, write neatly, work with detailed numbering systems, keep accurate and clear records, and handle moderately heavy objects. Interested students should be working toward a degree in history, art history, material culture, Jewish studies, museum studies, or archival science. Previous museum or gallery experience is not required. Please send a cover letter, resume, and list of three references to Ms. Jobi Zink, Sr. Collections Manger, Jewish Museum of Maryland, 15 Lloyd Street, Baltimore MD 21202 or to jzink@jewishmuseummd.org. Candidates interested in a spring internship should submit their applications immediately; applications for summer internships should be received no later than March 14, 2008.

Lace, the Spaces Between: Domestic Lace making and the Social Fabric of the Italian American Community in Corning
Presented by the ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes and the Corning Painted Post Historical Society
Benjamin Patterson Inn Museum, 59 W. Pulteney St., Corning, NY
For more information, please call the Corning Painted Post Historical Society, 607-937-5281 or The ARTS, 607-962-5871 x222
You are invited to share the joys and hardships of the Italian American immigrant experience through the practice of lace making. Lace, the Spaces Between: Domestic Lace making and the Social Fabric of the Italian American Community in Corning. Domestic handmade lace is a metaphor for the Italian American experience in Corning. It symbolizes cultural continuity as well as the cultural change. It carries social meanings about the role of women, beauty and cleanliness, the home, the immigrant experience and tradition. Rejecting domestic lace is a means of embracing modernity and Americanization. Lace is a way to tell the particular story of Italians in Corning and the common story of change through immigration and between generations.
February 22 - December 19, 2008

Never Routine: Women in the Course of their Everyday Lives (Juried Art Exhibition, Contest and Panel Discussion)
9 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Grace Institute Gallery, 1233 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10021
For more information, contact Curator, Jennifer Kamara: 212-832-7605, or e-mail jkamara@graceinstitute.org
Cost: Free
In celebration of Women’s History Month, and Grace Institute’s continued commitment to see women succeed, Grace Institute Gallery presents a new juried art exhibition that commemorates all aspects of a woman’s daily talents and achievements both in and out of the workplace.
March 3 - April 25, 2008

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