Sicily Travelogue

Join Douglas Kenning for another Regional Sundays event, featuring his personal travelogue of Sicily’s rich history and culture.

Goethe said, “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.” The most mythic, mistreated, and monster-plagued place in the Mediterranean, twice has she enjoyed a Golden Age, twice a pivot of Western Civilization, only to be exploited and left desolate each time. Hers is a tragic epic populated with heroes from Ulysses to Archimedes and monsters from Cyclops to Mafia bosses. On the wings of her stories and myths, images of her art and land, tastes of her unique cuisine, we will travel Sicily’s 3000 years.

A tasting of regional cuisine and wine will be graciously offered by Maria Micale, Philip Farrocco, and the Italian Commerce Association.

BIO:
Douglas Kenning (Ph.D), second generation Sicilian on his mother’s side (née Scalia) has enjoyed a career as an assistant professor at universities in Tunisia, Japan, Italy, and the U.S. Also, he has been, professionally, a biologist, actor, army officer, Manhattan taxi driver, study-abroad academic director, and writer of books, articles, and stage plays. He divides each year between the San Francisco area, giving talks and lectures mostly on Mediterranean civilizations (over 120 courses on over 25 different subjects), and Sicily, where he founded “Sicily Tour,” a history and myth-focused small-group tour company.