The Passeggiata and Popular Culture in an Italian Town: Folklore and the Performance of Modernity

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The Passeggiata and Popular Culture in an Italian Town: Folklore and the Performance of Modernity. By Giovanna P. Del Negro. (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004. Pp. xiii + 183; acknowledgments, photographs, diagram, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $75.00 cloth, $24.95 paper)

This book deserves notice for its ethnographic richness and attention to detail, its innovative approach to folklore and expressive culture, its attention to genres that usually fall between the cracks of ethnographic observation, and its original application of theory. A study of social life, custom and the everyday performance of self in the town of "Sasso" (Abruzzi, Italy), Del Negro's book begins …