Dr. Giovanna De Luca
Professor of Italian

Dr. Giovanna De Luca is a professor of Italian at the College of Charleston. She received her Ph.D. in comparative literature, with a specialization in Italian and a certificate in film studies, in 2002. Her research interests are contemporary Italian cinema, Neapolitan cinema, mafia in Italian and American cinema, childhood in Italian and French cinema, literary and film theory, and cultural studies. She is founder and artistic director of Nuovo Cinema Italiano Film Festival.
Education
2002: Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, with Specialization in Italian and a Certificate in Film Studies. City University of New York, Graduate Center, New York.
1999: M.A. in Comparative Literature, City University of New York, Graduate Center, New York.
Courses Taught
Ltit 370: Southern Italian Cinema
Ltit 270: Survey in Italian Cinema- From Neorealism to Today
Ltit 370: Mafia in Italian and American Cinema
Ltit 370: New Italian Cinema
Ital 390: The Italian Short Story
Ltit 250: Survey of Italian Culture and Civilization (Globally Connected Course)
Ital 390: Food, Culture and Sustainability in Italy
Ital 201/202: Intermediate Italian
Ital 313/314: Italian Conversation and Composition
Ital 328: Italian Studies Abroad
Publications
Monographs:
Contemporary Neapolitan Cinema, in progress.Harsh Spectacle: The Mafia in Italian and American Cinema, in progress.
Il punto di vista dell’ infanzia nel cinema italiano e francese: rivisioni, Napoli: Liguori Editore, 2009.
Journal Essays (peer reviewed):
“Italian Exports: Italian Film Festivals in the USA.” Cinergie: Il cinema e le altre arti, N. 18 December 2020, online only.“From Fear to Laughter: How Comedy came to Describe the Camorra in Contemporary Italian Film.” Italica, Vol. 95, Fall 2018, online only.
“Gomorra nell'immaginario popolare ossia Gli effetti di Gomorra sulla gente.” AATI Work in Progress (https://bancheri.utm.utoronto.ca/aati- online/wpapers/viewer.html?file=../papers/705a6bf6291bb0e95dbbdff236bc4221.pdf), February 2017: 1-8.
“Into Paradiso and Mozzarella Stories: Comedy, Mafia and Immigration—An Interview with Paola Randi and Edoardo De Angelis.” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 3, Issue 3 (2015): 337- 390.
“I bambini e noi: l'infanzia nel cinema di Luigi Comencini,” Quaderni d’italianistica, Special Issue Children and Cinema. Vol. XXXIV, N. 2 (2014): 85-98.
“Mediterraneanism and Ironic Postmodern Nostalgia in Sergio Rubini’s Apulia” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, (2012): 75-81.
“Il piccolo Archimede e Le chiavi di casa di Gianni Amelio: Autorialità e testo letterario,” Forum Italicum, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2008): 184-199.
“Fable and Reality in Comencini’s Voltati Eugenio,” Italica, Vol. 82, No. 2 (2006): 210-221.
“La parola come irruzione della discontinuità nel selvaggio dell’Aveyron,” Filmcritica, no. 538, (2003): 367-375.
“Il percorso morale di Cesarino Brei,” Quaderni d’Italianistica, Vol. 21, No. 1 (2001): 127-136.
“Un uomo di carattere di Paola Capriolo: Il movimento impossibile,” Quaderni d’Italianistica, vol. 19, n. 2 (2000): 137-143.
“The Victorious Children of Truffaut’s Small Change,” Film Comment, Jan./Feb. (1999): 64-69.
Book Chapters in refereed anthologies:
“Placido Rizzotto and Segreti di Stato” in Nuovo Cinema Politico: Public Life, Imagery and Identity in Contemporary Italian Film, edited by Giancarlo Lombardi and Christian Uva. New York: Peter Lang, 2016. 350-359.“The Myth of Childhood: Luigi Comencini's Adaptation of La storia” In Elsa Morante's Politics of Writing: Rethinking Subjectivity, History, and the Power of Art, edited by Stefania Lucamante. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015.173-182.
“Seeing Anew: Children in Italian Cinema- 1944 to the Present” in The Italian Cinema Book, edited by Peter Bondanella. London: Palgrave Macmillan and The British Film Institute, 2014. 101-108.
Media Coverage:
Being Progressive: Using Film for Artistic, Social and Cultural Progress
https://charlestonstyleanddesign.com/visions-of-light-italian-style/
https://www.arcimovie.it/news/arci-movie-al-nuovo-cinema-italiano-film-festival-charleston.html
https://vimeo.com/298445872?from=outro-embed Manetti Brothers
https://vimeo.com/298448016?from=outro-embed Luigi De Magistris, Mayor of Naples.