IMAGINING AMERICA: MULTICULTURAL SHORT STORIES DEALING WITH THE PROMISES – FULFILLED AND UNFULFILLED – OF OUR NATION, WRITTEN BY SOME OF THE GREATEST WRITERS OF OUR TIME. Location TBD

Wednesdays, 1-2:30pm, October 8, 15, 22, 28, November 5, 12

We will be reading and discussing some of the best short fiction ever written about the experience of being “American” from the perspective of natives, immigrants, the “other”, all of whose voices contribute to our understanding of the true meaning of the term.

Text: IMAGINING AMERICA: Stories from the Promised Land (Revised edition). Ed. Wesley Brown and Amy Ling. Paperback, ISBN 978-0892552771. Revised Edition, 384 pgs, The text will be supplemented by hand outs of some additional stories.

Leader: Marino D’Orazio holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the CUNY Graduate Center and a JD degree from Brooklyn Law School. He has been a college professor of both English and Italian, and has translated fiction and nonfiction books from the Italian. His latest translations are a book about climate change (EGGS, EARTH and SPACE), a novel (THE HOUSE ON THE FONDACO PLAIN) and an archeological/historical guide to the ancient Roman city: SAEPINUM: Discovering the Disinterred City.

Marino has also had a long career as an attorney, from which he now deems himself ‘semi-retired.’ It has been his pleasure to lead several study groups - in both Italian and English - over the years