Dr. Joan Saverino, adjunct professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice, combined the domestic and the academic in two presentations on the social and cultural importance of bread making and embroidery.

On Oct. 9, Dr. Saverino presented on “The Intimacy of Bread Making, Culinary Knowledge, and Enactment in the Social Space of the Bake Oven from Calabria, Italy, to Appalachia” at the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting in Long Beach, Calif. The paper was part of a panel that analyzed the way food crosses national and cultural borders in Italian, Greek, and Turkish contexts.

On Nov. 3, Dr. Saverino presented at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., on “Embroidery as Inscription in the Life of a Calabrian Immigrant Woman,” exploring a woman’s nearly 100-year life through needlework, personal narrative, gender and creativity.