Patrizia La Trecchia

Patrizia La Trecchia is an Associate Professor of Italian in the Department of World Languages at the University of South Florida (USF), where she also serves as Founding Director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative and founder/director of the Italian Studies Program. She holds affiliations with the Institute for the Advanced Study of Culture and the Environment and the Morsani College of Medicine through her food justice pedagogy. Her work intersects food studies, environmental humanities, and cultural studies, emphasizing decolonial approaches to food justice and environmental sustainability.

She pioneered food-focused pedagogy at USF, developing courses like In the Kitchen and Italian Food in Film, which examine food systems through transnational lenses. Her research analyzes Naples from postcolonial perspectives, focusing on food sovereignty, migration, and urban transformation. She has authored monographs including Uno sguardo a Sud and The Politics of Food Justice in Italy, and her work appears in Gastronomica, ITALICA, and Studies in European Cinema.

La Trecchia’s professional engagements include roles on the boards of the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), the Cinemambiente environmental film festival, and the Gasparilla International Film Festival. She contributed to the FAO’s Habitat Partner University Initiative on food security and delivered a TEDx talk on food waste (2013). Her initiatives foster global collaborations with institutions like the Narratives & Social Changes Research Group and the Observatory on International Cooperation for Sustainable Development.