About LDG

August 3rd, 2009 Posted in | No Comments »

Luisa Del Giudice

Luisa Del Giudice was born in Terracina (Latina, Italy), emigrated to Toronto, Canada in 1956, and has lived in Los Angeles since 1981. She speaks Italian (standard, and Terracinese dialect), French, and English, and is widely traveled.

She has been both a university academic (UCLA, Visiting Prof. Addis Ababa Univ., Ethiopia) and public sector educator, as the Founder-Director of the nonprofit educational and community-based research organization, the IOHI – Italian Oral History Institute. She is committed to community education and to innovative public programs on the folk and regional cultures of Italians and the Italian diaspora.  In her multiple activities as academic, public folklorist, and community activist, she seeks to bridge various roles and audiences.

She has published and lectured widely and is internationally known for her work on Italian and Italian American and Canadian folklife, ethnology, and oral history:  from foodways (e.g., gastronomic utopias, wine culture and the cantina, history of pasta, food altars), material culture and belief (Toronto’s archvillas, Watts Towers, St. Joseph’s Day Tables), to oral expressions, especially song (ballads, neo-tarantismo, folk revival movements), to children’s literature (Tomie de Paola), oral history (Archeology and Horace’s Villa in Licenza, Italian Los Angeles, Veterans Oral History Project), local history (www.ItalianLosAngeles.org), and women (On Second Thought).  She has produced many academic conferences and multimedia festivals on various aspects of Italian and Mediterranean regional and folk culture, in Los Angeles, California and internationally.

She is committed to many peace and social justice issues:  e.g., food justice and the homeless, women’s rights, indigenous rights, social and cultural equity, as well as cross-cultural and interfaith dialogue.

In 2008, she was named a Fellow of the American Folklore Society and Cavaliere (Knight) of the Italian Republic.

Download Del Giudice 2018 CV