The evil eye has received considerable attention in the literature of disciplines as diverse as anthropology and medicine. Researchers have attempted to identify and explain this essentially ambiguous and variable phenomenon from a number of perspectives - as a culture-bound syndrome, an idiom of distress, a mechanism of social control, and a representation of psychobiological fear. In Mal'uocchiu: Ambiguity, Evil Eye, and the Language of Distress, Sam Migliore shifts the focus of discussion from paradigms to a practical examination of how people use the notion of the evil eye in...

First published in 1999, and long since out of print, Italian Lives, Cape Breton Memories is now re-released for a new generation. The book conveys the rich and varied experiences of Italians living in Cape Breton in their own words--the immigration experience; work experience in the home, the steel plant and the coal mines, and life in business, politics and other areas of endeavour. As ethnographers, editors and analysts, Sam Migliore and Evo DiPierro help illuminate a variety of other important and sensitive subjects: the treatment of Italians during the Second World War; the...