Academics
Fields of Study: Humanities, Social Sciences
Take courses in the humanities and social sciences that are specially designed to use the city of Rome to understand Italian history, culture, and society. All elective courses include site visits in Rome and beyond that bring each subject to life. Expert local professors teach in the city’s piazzas, churches, and museums, exploring many of Rome’s most interesting neighborhoods. Past classes have visited some of Rome’s most popular destinations including the Vatican Museum and the Borghese Gallery, not to mention private, behind-the-scenes tours of lesser-visited sites like the excavations under St. Peter’s Basilica and the tomb of St. Peter.
Unique study opportunities
- Explore the culture and ecology of pasta and the historical evolution of spices.
- Celebrate the artifacts and rivalries of Baroque and Renaissance artistic geniuses.
- Get to know fellow UC students from across California in small classes.
Language
Language of Instruction: EnglishItalian Language Study: Optional
You have the option to take a lower-division elementary Italian language course.
The Italian language course focuses on practical use and oral expression. Italian instructors use Rome as a laboratory, enabling you to engage immediately in the community around the Study Center. You will also participate in conversation groups and weekly "get to know Rome" outings led by Italian student interns.
Courses and credit
Requirements While Abroad
To successfully complete this program:
- Take a full-time course of study: Three courses for a total of 15 quarter UC units.
- You may take one course for pass/no pass.
To successfully complete this program:
- Take a full-time course of study: Four courses for a total of 20 quarter/13.2 semester UC units.
- During the first 10 weeks, take three elective courses. Each course is worth 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units.
- During the last five weeks of the program take one intensive elective course worth 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units.
- You may take one course for pass/no pass. If you decide to take one of your courses for pass/no pass in the first 10 weeks of the program, you cannot use the pass/no pass option for the last five-week course.
Current Program Courses
Exact offerings may vary depending on enrollment and instructor availability. Final course offerings are announced before the start of the program. Course enrollment is held on a first-come, first-served basis; enrollment in your top course preferences is not guaranteed, so be sure to have back-up courses in mind. Recent courses include:
Elective courses (select three):
- Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
Learn about the looting, destruction, and reselling of antiquities, from classical antiquity to today. Explore the history of collecting, illegal excavation, and the illicit trade in antiquities, the role of auction houses, the Church, museums and galleries, ownership and patrimony issues, international laws and agreements, recovery and repatriation, and ongoing problems with the protection and conservation of antiquities.
Subject areas: Art History, Archeology, Legal Studies - Elementary Italian (lower-division, 5 quarter UC units)
Buongiorno! Learn how to express yourself in Italian and to understand those around you. Through a focus on key skills, the interactive classes in the city and in the classroom will help you to communicate with locals and to feel part of the city.
Subject area: Italian - Italian Media: From Bread and Circuses to the Digital Age (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
Explore the media treatment of the Vatican, the Mafia, gender issues and sexism, refugees and migration, fashion and food, cultural heritage and overtourism, racism, and sport. This course includes guest lectures from Italian journalists and relevant site visits to the national public radio broadcaster, Rai Radio.
Subject areas: Italian, Film & Media Studies, Communication - Love and Sexuality in Early Modern Italy (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
Gender identity in early modern Italy was complex, and the art and literature of the period sheds light on possible precedents of homosexual, lesbian, transgender, and gender non-conforming identities. Explore the role and place of nudity in Christian art, the sensuous and even “lascivious” aspects of sexuality in the domestic and secular spheres, great women poets of the Renaissance, and more.
Subject areas: Art History, Italian, Women and Gender Studies - Politics of Migration (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
Examine the fundamental links between immigration across the Mediterranean Basin with globalization, development, climate change, poverty, and present-day domestic politics. This course includes a tour of the Esquilino neighborhood in Rome led by locals who have migrated to Italy.
Subject areas: Political Science, Sociology - Social Psychology and Social Influence (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
How are human thoughts, feelings, and behavior influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other people and cultural backgrounds? Explore how research in social psychology can shed light on events going on around the world and in your own life and how it can help to better human existence.
Subject areas: Psychology, Sociology - Sport and Society in Modern Italy (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
What is the relationship between sports and issues including gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationalism in Italy? Learn how developments in sports have influenced, and have been influenced by, Italian politics and society from the 20th century to today. This course includes site visits to the Foro Italico, inaugurated in 1932, during the reign of the fascist dictator Mussolini, and a visit to an AS Roma football game.
Subject areas: History, Sociology - Territory, Food, and Anthropology (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
Learn about Rome’s rich network of food distribution systems and tour the city to discover the close linkage between the territory, its inhabitants, and consumable food products. Throughout the course attention is paid to the role of food practice in contemporary Italian society and culture, with special attention to gender.
Subject areas: Agricultural Sciences, Anthropology, Italian - Women in Art (upper-division, 5 quarter UC units)
“Why have there been no great women artists?”, asked Linda Nochlin in 1971. In this course you will study women as artists, patrons, and subjects in Rome from Antiquity to the Baroque. With a special focus on primary sources, the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi, and feminist theory, this course includes visits to churches and museums.
Subject areas: Art History, Women and Gender Studies
Research and independent study are typically not available on this program.
Exact offerings may vary depending on enrollment and instructor availability. Final course offerings are announced before the start of the program. Course enrollment is held on a first-come, first-served basis; enrollment in your top course preferences is not guaranteed, so be sure to have back-up courses in mind. Recent courses include:
Elective courses, first 10 weeks of the program (select three):
- Art Crime and Cultural Heritage Protection (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Learn about the looting, destruction, and reselling of antiquities, from classical antiquity to today. Explore the history of collecting, illegal excavation, and the illicit trade in antiquities, the role of auction houses, the Church, museums and galleries, ownership and patrimony issues, international laws and agreements, recovery and repatriation, and ongoing problems with the protection and conservation of antiquities.
Subject areas: Art History, Archeology, Legal Studies - Elementary Italian (lower-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Buongiorno! Learn how to express yourself in Italian and to understand those around you. Through a focus on key skills, the interactive classes in the city and in the classroom will help you to communicate with locals and to feel part of the city.
Subject area: Italian - Italian Media: From Bread and Circuses to the Digital Age (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Explore the media treatment of the Vatican, the Mafia, gender issues and sexism, refugees and migration, fashion and food, cultural heritage and overtourism, racism, and sport. This course includes guest lectures from Italian journalists and relevant site visits to the national public radio broadcaster, Rai Radio.
Subject areas: Italian, Film & Media Studies, Communication - Love and Sexuality in Early Modern Italy (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Gender identity in early modern Italy was complex, and the art and literature of the period sheds light on possible precedents of homosexual, lesbian, transgender, and gender non-conforming identities. Explore the role and place of nudity in Christian art, the sensuous and even “lascivious” aspects of sexuality in the domestic and secular spheres, great women poets of the Renaissance, and more.
Subject areas: Art History, Italian, Women and Gender Studies - Politics of Migration (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Examine the fundamental links between immigration across the Mediterranean Basin with globalization, development, climate change, poverty, and present-day domestic politics. This course includes a tour of the Esquilino neighborhood in Rome led by locals who have migrated to Italy.
Subject areas: Political Science, Sociology - Social Psychology and Social Influence (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
How are human thoughts, feelings, and behavior influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other people and cultural backgrounds? Explore how research in social psychology can shed light on events going on around the world and in your own life and how it can help to better human existence.
Subject areas: Psychology, Sociology - Sport and Society in Modern Italy (upper-division, 5/3.3 semester quarter UC units)
What is the relationship between sports and issues including gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationalism in Italy? Learn how developments in sports have influenced, and have been influenced by, Italian politics and society from the 20th century to today. This course includes site visits to the Foro Italico, inaugurated in 1932, during the reign of the fascist dictator Mussolini, and a visit to an AS Roma football game.
Subject areas: History, Sociology - Territory, Food, and Anthropology (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Learn about Rome’s rich network of food distribution systems and tour the city to discover the close linkage between the territory, its inhabitants, and consumable food products. Throughout the course attention is paid to the role of food practice in contemporary Italian society and culture, with special attention to gender.
Subject areas: Agricultural Sciences, Anthropology, Italian - Women in Art (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
“Why have there been no great women artists?”, asked Linda Nochlin in 1971. In this course you will study women as artists, patrons, and subjects in Rome from Antiquity to the Baroque. With a special focus on primary sources, the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi, and feminist theory, this course includes visits to churches and museums.
Subject areas: Art History, Women and Gender Studies
Elective courses, final 5 weeks of the program (select one):
- Rome Theatre of the World: The Early Modern City in a Global Perspective (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Learn in the church chapels, villas, palaces, and public spaces where artworks were originally intended by the patron and designed by the artist at the outset. Lectures are almost entirely on-site, where each artwork, building, and urban plan is studied in situ as a document to understand the Baroque period (c.1550-1750), a time of profound European cultural, religious, and political change.
Subject areas: Art History, Architecture - Religious and Social Diversity in Rome Today (upper-division, 5 quarter/3.3 semester UC units)
Alongside Italian Catholics are Muslims from different sects; Orthodox groups (Romanians, Ukrainians, Serbians, Moldovans, Greeks, and Russians); Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and Tamils from India; Pentecostals (Africans, Latin-Americans, and Chinese) and more. Learn the impact of diversity on education and prisons, the debate on the building of mosques, as well as literature written by immigrants in Italy.
Subject areas: Religious Studies, Sociology
Research and independent study are typically not available on this program.
Catalogs and resources
- UCEAP Course Catalog: See a list of courses students have taken on this program.
- Campus Credit Abroad: Learn the types of credit (major, minor, general education, elective) students from your campus received at this location.
Academic culture
This program is designed for UC students and taught by faculty from local universities who are long-term residents of Rome. You will be in classes with other UC students and a small number of non-UC college students from the US. Classes are relatively small. You are required to attend class, arrive punctually, and participate actively in your courses. Attendance is taken at every course meeting.
Papers, reports, exams, and projects are all part of the curriculum. Professors are local Romans with experience teaching UC students. They will bring some of the Italian style to the classroom, including vibrant discussions, expectations of student professionalism, and a fondness for student independence.
Grades
You will earn direct UC credit and grades for all coursework. Grades for the winter quarter are typically available in May. Grades for the spring semester are typically available in June.