Luisa Del Giudice

Profile

A scholar who works in the field

Luisa Del Giudice is an independent scholar and the founder of the Italian Oral History Institute. She served as a visiting assistant professor of Italian folklore at the University of California, Los Angeles, between 1995 and 2001, and has taught and lectured widely on Italian and Italian American folklife.

Her work ranges across the everyday and the expressive sides of culture. She has written on foodways, on oral expression and storytelling, on material culture, on children's literature and on belief. Alongside her writing she has produced many public events devoted to the regional and folk cultures of Italy and the Mediterranean, several of them in Los Angeles.

Selected publications and recordings

Her books and recordings include a study of a traditional narrative song, published in Brescia in 1995, and an edited collection of studies in Italian American folklore, published in 1993. An anthology of Italian traditional song, first issued in 1989 and revised in 1995, gathered song texts in their original dialects with English translations. A study and a recording of narrative song from the Brallo region appeared in 1989.

These titles sit at the centre of the Institute's shelf of publications, and copies are described in more detail on the publications page.

Work with the Institute

As Executive Director she sets the Institute's research direction, leads fieldwork campaigns and represents the organisation in its partnerships. She has also taught the Institute's public course on collecting and connecting Italian culture in Los Angeles, and has curated exhibitions and concert programs drawn directly from the Institute's field recordings.

The point of the work is to keep a voice in the room long after the speaker has left it.