English

This course examines language, discourse, and communication across different contexts within medicine, illness, and health. It explores some of the dominant policy and media discourses of health, focusing on issues such as mental health, relationships of power between patients and health professionals, the framing of personal risk and responsibility in health promotion, and the representations of emerging diseases. Students examine the discursive negotiation of personal experiences of health problems, for example through narrative reconstructions of illness experiences, positioning of "sick" and "healthy" people, doctor-patient interactions, and the use of online forums for advice and support. The course covers a range of approaches and methods that are used in health discourse analysis, such as illness narratives, discursive psychology, conversation analysis, discourse metaphors, and critical discourse analysis.

This course provides a core of knowledge of Italy’s post-Unification history, grounding students in the political, economic, and social development of the country. Commencing with the nation-state’s formation, the analysis of issues surrounding Italy’s early identity, society, and political structures reveals many of the problems that subsequent regimes have sought to address. After developing a solid grounding in the formation and establishment of the new nation state, the course explores the impact of World War One upon the interwar period of Fascist Italy. After establishing what Fascism was and what it meant for Italian people, consideration turns to the Second World War, the fall of Italian Fascism and its long-term legacy upon the postwar Republic. Examination of post-1945 Italy considers the influence of America and the Cold War upon the internal battle for political control between the Left and the Catholic Right. This period also focuses on Italy’s economic recovery and re-entry into "normal" diplomatic relations that was rubber-stamped by the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. With the country’s foreign relations stabilized, attention turns to the internal crises of insurrection, terrorism, mafia activity and corruption that led to Tangentopoli, the collapse of the old political order, and the rise of Silvio Berlusconi. The course concludes by examining the rise of the contemporary political phenomenon of the Five Star Movement and the Lega.

The course introduces Mechatronics as a fundamental concept for modelling and designing machine systems, and to encourage electrical systems to be modeled in a manner compatible with mechanical systems using system concepts; to develop an ability to design, and select components for simple electromechanical systems; and to develop mastery of modelling concepts which have direct equivalents in mechanical systems theory, e.g. equivalent characteristics, operating diagrams, complex impedance.

This multidisciplinary course considers equality, discrimination, affirmative action, and multiculturalism within the specific context of the U.S. experience. This experience is characterized by three structural features that Alexis de Tocqueville famously identified: the passion for equality, the salience of racial divisions, and the judicialization of politics. Elaborating upon those intuitions, the course relies extensively on history (that of ethno-racial and religious minorities since the early nineteenth century), law (through a thorough analysis of some of the key Supreme Court decisions in this area), political science (through the study of the emergence, development, and partial decline of race-conscious policies such as affirmative action and the redistricting designed to increase the number of Black and Hispanic elected representatives), and political philosophy (by discussing theories of social justice and equality, notably those of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Michael Walzer).