Kym L. Ragusa (born February 25, 1966) is an American writer and documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York.
Kym Ragusa | |
|---|---|
| Born | Kym L. Ragusa February 25, 1966 Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer, filmmaker, teacher |
| Alma mater | New School for Social Research Hunter College |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
Early life and education
editRagusa was born in Manhattan, New York, to an Italian-American father and an African-American mother. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Messina; her maternal ancestors were brought to the United States as slaves.[1] She spent much of her childhood living alternately with her maternal grandparents in Harlem and her paternal grandparents in Maplewood, New Jersey.[2]
After attending public schools, Ragusa earned an M.A. in Media from the New School for Social Research.[1] She also studied creative writing at Hunter College, where she was a student of Louise DeSalvo.[3]
Career
editRagusa directed two award-winning short documentary films, Passing (1995) and Fuori/Outside (1997).[3] Her other films include Demarcations, Threads of Memory, and Remembering the Triangle Fire.[2]
Her memoir, The Skin Between Us: A Memoir of Race, Beauty, and Belonging (W. W. Norton & Co., 2006), was a finalist for the 2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for nonfiction,[4] and has been well received by critics.[5][6][7][8] An Italian-language edition, La pelle che ci separa, was published in 2008.[9] Her writing has also appeared in anthologies, such as The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture (2003),[10] Personal Effects: Essays on Memoir, Teaching, and Culture in the Work of Louise DeSalvo (2014),[11] and Are Italians White? How Race is Made in America (2012).[12]
Much of Ragusa's artistic work explores themes of racial identity and belonging. In the foreword to Olive Grrrls: Italian North American Women & The Search For Identity (2013), Ragusa describes her uneasiness with pat answers to the question, "What are you?" and concludes that "No identity is singular, clear-cut, fixed; each is situated in histories and in daily lives that are endlessly complex."[13]
Ragusa has taught Writing and Film Studies at Eugene Lang College and the City University of New York.[1]
Awards
edit- 1995: Juror's Prize, Women in the Director's Chair, for Passing[14]
- 1997: Best Video, South Bronx Film and Video Festival, for Fuori/Outside[14]
- 1999: New York Foundation for the Arts film fellowship[2]
- 2007: Hurston-Wright Legacy Award finalist for The Skin Between Us
References
edit- ^ a b c "Kym Ragusa" (PDF). University of Minnesota. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 10, 2015.
- ^ a b c "Ragusa, Kym". Encyclopedia.com. Gale. 2009.
- ^ a b Tenzer, Livia (2002). "Documenting Race and Gender: Kym Ragusa Discusses 'Passing' and 'Fuori/Outside'". Women's Studies Quarterly. 30 (1/2): 213–220. JSTOR 40004647.
- ^ "Kym Ragusa". Hurston/Wright Foundation. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
- ^ "Review of The Skin Between Us". Kirkus Reviews. May 8, 2006. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
- ^ "Review of The Skin Between Us". Publishers Weekly.
- ^ Antonucci, Clara (2008). "Review of The Skin Between Us". Italian Americana. 26 (1): 110–111. JSTOR 41353782.
- ^ Gennari, John (2017). "The Sounds and the Fury". Flavor and Soul: Italian America at Its African American Edge. University of Chicago Press. pp. 227–233. ISBN 9780226428468.
Ragusa's memoir is exquisitely poignant, lyrical, and most of all—soundful: it demands a hearing from its readers.
- ^ Baldo, Michela (2014). "Painful Italianness: Translating the (post)migrant female body". Academia.edu. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
- ^ DeSalvo, Louise; Giunta, Edvige, eds. (August 2003). "Baked Ziti". The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture. Feminist Press at CUNY. pp. 276–284. ISBN 9781558614536.
- ^ Caronia, Nancy; Giunta, Edvige, eds. (2014). "On Vulnerability and Risk: Learning to Write and Teach Memoir as a Student of Louise DeSalvo". Personal Effects: Essays on Memoir, Teaching, and Culture in the Work of Louise DeSalvo. Fordham University Press. pp. 105–110. ISBN 9780823262274.
- ^ Guglielmo, Jennifer, ed. (2012). "Sangu du Sangu: Growing Up Black and Italian in a Time of White Flight". Are Italians White? How Race is Made in America. Routledge. pp. 213–223. ISBN 9781136062421.
- ^ Ragusa, Kym (2013). "Foreword". In Greco, Lachrista (ed.). Olive Grrrls: Italian North American Women & The Search For Identity. Olive Grrrl Press.
- ^ a b "Kym Ragusa". Mixed Race Studies.
Further reading
edit- Giunta, Edvige (1999). "Figuring Race: Kym Ragusa's fuori/outside". In Ashyk, Daniel; Gardaphé, Fred L.; Tamburri, Anthony Julian (eds.). Shades of Black and White: Conflict and Collaboration Between Two Communities. Italian American Studies Association. pp. 262–274. ISBN 978-0934675437. Archived from the original on 2017-12-28. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
- Greene, Shelleen, ed. (2012). "fuori/outside: Gender, Race, and the Italian/African American Experience". Equivocal Subjects: Between Italy and Africa -- Constructions of Racial and National Identity in the Italian Cinema. A&C Black. pp. 181–184. ISBN 9781441190437.
- Perez, Hiram. "'It's Just Dark Outside': Kym Ragusa's Memoirs of White Flight" Archived 2019-03-06 at the Wayback Machine. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association, October 12, 2006.
External links
edit- Kym Ragusa at IMDb