About

Ritual, religion, and magic in the Italian diaspora. 

This blog is an exploration of italianità as it is found both within and without Italy. The majority of the content is drawn from academic sources which I seek to make accessible to a wider audience. My ultimate hope in doing so is to spark anamnesis, that is, cultural unforgetting for children of the Italian diaspora.

In my experience, anamnesis is weird as fuck. The content of this blog reflects that reality. Brazenly pagan and uncomfortably Catholic, we learn to speak to the dead, the saints, and the Madonnas.

About the author
Mallorie Vaudoise is a Brooklyn-based spiritualist of Italian descent, with her mother’s family hailing from Campania and and her father’s family from Abruzzo. She studies tarantella, in particular the tammurriata and the pizzica salentina. She believes that music, food, wine, and kissing are vital tools of spiritual evolution.

About the title
Paese Ombra (in English: “Shadow Country”) refers to the diverse manifestations of Italian culture in foreign territories following the Italian diaspora. The phrase comes from from RAI, Italy’s public national broadcaster, who were filming a segment about Italian-American culture in my neighborhood in 2015.