Polish-American Folklore (review)

own ends. The first part of Che Bella Figura! addresses issues of methodological concern and provides a stimulating look at how the ideas of bella and brutta figura have played themselves out in different periods of Italian history. The second part of Nardini’s study firmly situates her work within the broader theoretical literatures of the ethnography of communication and women’s language studies, and explores the issues of gender and power as well as the relationship between language and culture. In the final chapter, Nardini offers an excellent linguistic analysis of a conversation between the treasurer of the Collandia Ladies’ Club and the president of the Men’s Club. This detailed transcript lays bare the elaborate ways in which the female members of this speech community manipulate formal dimensions of language (intonation, repetition, and prosody) in order to achieve social power. Attending to the often unrecognized work of women, Nardini’s study is a corrective to scholarship that has centered itself exclusively upon men’s experience in immigrant contexts. By focusing on the network of female volunteers whose diligent service and “feminine touches” contribute to the growth and vitality of the Collandia Club, Nardini provides a more balanced and realistic portrait of how such ethnic organizations operate. In a particularly interesting section of chapter 3, Nardini deconstructs the formal history of the Collandia Ladies’ Club that she was asked to write in the mid 1990s and, in so doing, recovers the conflicting voices that she had excluded from her earlier account. This brief but illuminating discussion highlights how the rhetoric of gentility and cooperation that the “Ladies” strive so hard to maintain occasionally cracks under the pressure to accept the authority of the men in their society. Here, the gender politics of the club become readily apparent and the anger and resentment that exists behind the happy patina of female compliance is revealed. In her tightly organized, systematic, and engaging book, Nardini clearly demonstrates that while the men of the Collandia Club enjoy both a sense of entitlement and greater formal privileges within their organization, the women are by no means docile, subservient, or lacking in power. While the rules of proper decorum compel them to participate in a discourse that celebrates male dominance, their skillful use of bella figura in situated practice ultimately allows them partially to subvert a patriarchal ideology that defines women as powerless.