Mary Jo Bona is an American literary scholar who has written extensively on
Italian-American literature and its history. She is professor of Italian American Studies and chair of the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
.
Bona was born in Chicago and earned a Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of Wisconsin.
After serving for several years as an associate English professor and chair of the Women's Studies department at
Gonzaga University,
she received a stipendiary award and admission to the Academy of Teacher Scholars at Stony Brook.
She has authored and edited several scholarly works, including ''The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian American Women's Fiction'' (1993). Critic Kenneth Scambray calls ''The Voices We Carry'' "a significant contribution to Italian American and women's studies";
calls the anthology "a major step in the development of Italian/American literature";
and
Anthony Tamburri writes that the anthology "blazed a trail."
Bona's reviews, articles, and poetry have appeared in ''
American Literary History
For the history of American literature see American literature.
''American Literary History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press that covers all periods of American literature. It was founded in 198 ...
'', ''
Italian Americana
''Italian Americana'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies on the Italian-American experience. It publishes history, fiction, memoirs, poetry, and reviews. The editor-in-chief is Carla A. Simonini ( Loyola University Chic ...
'', ''
MELUS'', ''
NWSA Journal
''Feminist Formations'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1988 as the ''NWSA Journal'' (also known as the ''National Women's Studies Association Journal''); the name was changed beginning with the Spring 2010 issue. It publishes ...
'', ''
The Women's Review of Books
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial gr ...
'', and other journals. She published a volume of poems, ''I Stop Waiting for You'', in 2014.
Bona first became interested in Italian-American women's literature in the late 1980s after reading
Helen Barolini
Helen Barolini (born November 18, 1925) is an American writer, editor, and translator. As a second-generation Italian American, Barolini often writes on issues of Italian-American identity.How to count American immigrant generations is a subject ...
's influential anthology, ''The Dream Book''.
She formerly served as president of the Italian American Studies Association, and served on the board of the
Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) for six years.
Books
Author:
* ''Women Writing Cloth: Migratory Fictions in the American Imaginary'' (2016)
* ''I Stop Waiting for You: Poems'' (2014)
* ''By the Breath of Their Mouths: Narratives of Resistance in Italian America'' (2010)
* ''Italian American Literature'' (2003)
* ''Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers'' (1989)
Editor:
* ''Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates'' (2006)
* ''Italian Americans and the Arts & Culture'' (2005)
* ''Through the Looking Glass: Italian & Italian/American Images in the Media'' (1996)
* ''The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian American Women's Fiction'' (1993)
Contributor:
* "Afterword," ''The Right Thing to Do'' by
Josephine Gattuso Hendin
Josephine Gattuso Hendin (born 1944) is an Italian American feminist novelist and critic.
Life
She grew up in Queens and now lives in Manhattan.
She graduated from City College of New York, magna cum laude, and Columbia University with an M.A. i ...
(1999)
* ''Taking Parts: Ingredients for Leadership, Participation, and Empowerment'' (1993)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bona, Mary Jo
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
American writers of Italian descent