The volume co-authored by Daniela Cosmini and Diana Glenn, La seconda casa (The second home): A history of the South Australian Italian Association, was launched by His Excellency Honorable Hieu Van Le, Governor of South Australia on Sunday 20 June 2021. The South Australian Italian Association (SAIA) and its predecessor organisations, the Catholic Italian Welfare Association (1949-1965) and the Italian Australian Centre (1965-1967), share a proud history of social welfare and outreach, place making and philanthropic activity carried out continuously over 70 years from the foundation address at 262 Carrington Street, Adelaide. The volume commemorates and celebrates the history of this special meeting place that for many came to represent their second home (‘la seconda casa’). The Catholic Italian Welfare Association was of prime significance to large cohorts of Italian migrants in the early post-Second World war years in its role as the primary venue for Italian migrants seeking assistance with settlement, information and general orientation, as well as offering social networking opportunities to those arriving in increasing numbers from all parts of Italy. This volume is a significant addition to the literature on migration that will preserve a collective identity and individual memories that are in danger of being lost to the future generations.
Professor Diana Glenn
Diana Glenn was born in Adelaide. She is currently National Head of the School of Arts at the Australian Catholic University. She was formerly Dean of the School of Humanities and Creative Arts at Flinders University. Her research interests are in Dante Studies, Italian migration to Australia, material culture and twentieth-century Italian literature. She is the author of Dante’s Reforming Mission and Women in the Comedy (Troubador Italian Studies Series, Leicester, U.K., 2008, 260 pp.), a substantial and original reinterpretation of the significance of the female characters in Dante’s Comedy. The political, social and reformist status of the poem is analysed in an original way through the lens of the female characters.
She has published numerous scholarly articles nationally and internationally and has jointly edited the volumes, Dante Colloquia in Australia (1982–1999) in 2000, Flinders Dante Conferences 2002 & 2004 (2005), Imagining Home: Migrants and the Search for a New Belonging (2011), The Shadow of the Precursor (2012), ‘Legato con amore in un volume’: Essays in Honour of John A. Scott (2013), and with Graham Tulloch, Border Crossings (2016) and Italian Identities (2020). She is co-editor of the online journal FULGOR (Flinders University Languages Group Online Review), and the co-author with Daniela Cosmini of La seconda casa (The second home): A history of the South Australian Italian Association (2021).
Dr Daniela Cosmini
Daniela Cosmini was born in Savigliano, in the province of Cuneo and has been living in Adelaide since 1994. She has a PhD from Flinders University where she is Adjunct Fellow in Italian in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and was formerly the Head of Italian. Her research interests are in Italian migration to Australia, ageing in a foreign land and material culture. She is the co-author with Desmond O’Connor of Caulonia in the Heart: The Settlement in Australia of Migrants from a Southern Italian Town (2008) and co-author with Diana Glenn of La seconda casa (The second home): A history of the South Australian Italian Association (2021). She has published numerous scholarly articles nationally and internationally, has edited Ageing Between Cultures: The Experiences and Challenges of Italian Migrants in South Australia (2015), an interdisciplinary volume that addresses the multiple dimensions of the ageing experience of Italian migrants in South Australia by revisiting the concepts of health and wellbeing, intergenerational family care-giving practices and the role of language and culture in the ageing process.
June 2021