Kym Ragusa

Kym L. Ragusa (born February 25, 1966) is an American writer and documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York.

Kym Ragusa
BornKym L. Ragusa
(1966-02-25) February 25, 1966
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
OccupationWriter, filmmaker, teacher
NationalityAmerican
Alma materNew School for Social Research
Hunter College
GenreNonfiction

Early life and education

Ragusa 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

Ragusa 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

References
  1. "Kym Ragusa" (PDF). University of Minnesota. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 10, 2015.
  2. "Ragusa, Kym". Encyclopedia.com. Gale. 2009.
  3. 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.
  4. "Kym Ragusa". Hurston/Wright Foundation. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  5. "Review of The Skin Between Us". Kirkus Reviews. May 8, 2006. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  6. "Review of The Skin Between Us". Publishers Weekly.
  7. Antonucci, Clara (2008). "Review of The Skin Between Us". Italian Americana. 26 (1): 110–111. JSTOR 41353782.
  8. 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.
  9. Baldo, Michela (2014). "Painful Italianness: Translating the (post)migrant female body". Academia.edu. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  10. DeSalvo, Louise; Giunta, Edvige (eds.). "Baked Ziti". The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture. Feminist Press at CUNY. pp. 276–284. ISBN 9781558614536.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. Ragusa, Kym (2013). "Foreword". In Greco, Lachrista (ed.). Olive Grrrls: Italian North American Women & The Search For Identity. Olive Grrrl Press.
  14. "Kym Ragusa". Mixed Race Studies.

Further reading
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