Alessandro Portelli (born July 8, 1942) is an Italian scholar of American literature and culture, oral historian, writer for the daily newspaper il manifesto, and musicologist.
In the United States he is best known for his oral history work, which has compared workers' accounts of industrial conflicts in Harlan County, Kentucky, and Terni, Italy.
[4] Portelli returned as a James Still fellow at the UK Appalachian Center in fall 1983, and began developing his extensive oral history work in Harlan County.
He also began a continuing exchange program, involving graduate students and faculty, between the UK Appalachian Center and the University of Rome La Sapienza.
[12] In the fall of 2013, Portelli became embroiled in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel's occupation of Palestine after accepting an invitation to an international oral history conference organized by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
[13] In 1972 Portelli founded the Circolo Gianni Bosio, an activist collective dedicated to studying folklore, oral history, and people's culture.