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Discover southern Italy, including Sicily, Amalfi Coast, and Apulia.
Discover southern Italy, including Sicily, Amalfi Coast, and Apulia.
Day 1: Depart U.S. for Taormina, Sicily
Day 2: Taormina
Day 3: Taormina
Day 4: Taormina | Agrigento
Day 5: Taormina | Mount Etna
Day 6: Taormina | Matera
Day 7: Matera
Day 8: Matera | Alberobello | Lecce
Day 9: Lecce
Day 10: Lecce | Sorrento
Day 11: Sorrento | Pompeii
Day 12: Sorrento | Capri
Day 13: Sorrento | Amalfi Coast
Day 14: Depart for U.S.
I once wanted to be a Catholic priest, and I lived in Tuscany (IT) for two years as I attended seminary. You may not guess that from meeting me now.
I am a faculty member of the Department of American Culture. My research investigates the relationship between state power, culture, and religiosity along the U.S.-Mexico border region. His current work studies the evolution and development of online religiosity and digital spirituality. One of the central protagonists of this research project is a Catholic movement founded in Italy… and one of its founders is a UMich Alumni! I teach a class (Motor Nation) that focuses on American automobile cultures, histories, and futures. I also teach classes on Latino cultures and evolution, one about art, another about women, and finally one on research methods. I am a cultural studies scholar. I love people’s histories and how they deploy resiliency and mutual care.
I love Southern Italy; I come regularly to do research collaborations, write, and enjoy their culture, candor, and food. I am particularly excited about the multiple stories of contact, syncretism, and mutual transformation experienced in Sicily during its evolution. I see Sicily as a Mediterranean laboratory where many cultures come together to create a unique typology of people. Sicily is where both couscous and pasta come together, where people speak Spanish, Italian, and local dialects simultaneously. It is an island where people live next to one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, Etna… and some of the most stunning views of the mare nostro, the Mediterranean. It is also a place defined by migration, exchange, and constant mobilization of people from Africa and Asia into Europe. An extraordinary borderland!