English

This course examines the internal organization of firms and other organizations. It provides a rigorous introduction to foundational theories, and then discusses applications to real-world managerial problems. It looks at the following questions: How should incentives be designed in organizations? How should conflict within an organization be resolved? When should organizations outsource and when should they produce internally? Why do organizations arise in market economies? 

This course examines the institutional and cultural production of knowledge as well as the various forms of power that structure and legitimize it. It is co-taught by colleagues from different departments. Engaging with a range of anticolonial, anti-caste, feminist, indigenous and anti-capitalist texts, the course decenters the university as the exclusive site, and the individual as the paradigmatic source, of intellectual work. It (re)considers knowledge produced in other settings such as radical and revolutionary movements, forms of collective study, and its tension with extant structures of power. Central to the course is prioritizing engagement with, rather than mastery of, theory as part of a broader political commitment to praxis and “doing” intellectual work collectively. To that end, the course incorporates a form of assessment that recognizes and rewards this style of engagement. 

This course examines the emergence, institutionalization, and electoral dynamics of Green parties in Europe, from their roots in protest movements to their current place in national and European party systems. It explores their organizational models and electoral strategies through a combination of historical, sociological, and comparative approaches. The course analyzes the diversity of Green parties and their interactions with voters, social movements, and other parties. Particular attention is paid to the sociology and geography of the Green vote, as well as to methodological tools from comparative politics and electoral analysis. Students work with data from elections and surveys, conduct comparative research, and engage with case studies to understand how Green parties operate and evolve within contemporary democracies marked by climate urgency and political transformation.

This course examines horror’s aesthetic, experiential, and political dimensions, while investigating why and how it has persisted as one of popular culture’s most vigorous and influential genres. It closely considers a range of classic and contemporary films, TV shows and video games, confronting questions of power, affect, mediation and representation.

This course teaches how to identify opportunities for innovation and develop user-centered, impactful, and innovative digital solutions that respond to real-world needs. Through a combination of theoretical insights and practical tasks, explore how new digital solutions can drive change across various industries and societal needs.

Work in teams on real-world problems, realize bold ideas, and develop MVPs (minimum viable products) with mentoring and supervision. Key skills include market analysis, requirement elicitation, innovation strategy, solution making, and effective pitching.

This course uses a human-centered lens to examine security and privacy, focusing on how design and research can create solutions that people can understand, trust, and use.  

Security and privacy are as much about people as they are about technology. Many failures arise not just from a lack of technical capability, but from mismatches with how people think, behave, and interact in their everyday contexts. 

Students engage with real-world topics ranging from authentication and security warnings to deceptive patterns, AI privacy, and privacy and security challenges in sensing environments, while learning foundational methods in user research and usable security and privacy evaluation. Through critical readings, class discussions, and hands-on projects, students develop skills to understand and design for human factors in security and privacy contexts. 

Key themes include: 1) Human-centered research methods for security and privacy, 2) Usable security tools, access control, and warnings 3) AI-enabled security and privacy challenges, 4) Sensing environments and security/privacy issues, and 5) Ethics and social implications in security and privacy 

This course questions the place of researchers in the 21st century and law through the ethnographer's field. Is there such a field? The course introduces basic concepts of law and anthropology, human sciences, its colonial background and methodological critiques to further how lawyers can lean in and explore anthropology's paradigm of alterity to further critical legal thinking and how anthropologists and other social scientists can look at law as a cultural technique. The course discusses why using empirical work, sometimes uncomfortable for a researcher, similar to looking in the mirror, can contribute to better addressing today's ethical and political challenges. Through the revision of diverse examples, old and new, students learn about the method of “explorers."

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course advances students' understanding of structural behavior and enhances their ability to apply structural analysis methods to civil engineering structures. Students acquire knowledge in the following areas: Structural Matrix Analysis, i.e., techniques for analyzing 2D truss and frame structures using the Direct Stiffness Method and FEM software. Buckling Analysis, i.e., methods for buckling and post-buckling analysis of discrete and continuous systems, with FEM applications. Plastic Analysis, i.e., concepts of plasticity, incremental and limit analysis for truss and beam systems, also using FEM tools. The main skills developed during this course include: Proficiency in matrix analysis and the Finite Element Method (FEM) for analyzing truss and frame structures. Ability to evaluate buckling and post-buckling behavior of rigid and continuous systems, using equilibrium and energy methods. Competence in conducting plastic analysis of structural systems, including an understanding of plastic hinges. Software Proficiency: hands-on experience with FEM-based software for solving structural, buckling, and elasto-plastic problems. Analytical and critical thinking: enhanced ability to approach complex structural issues with theoretical and computational tools. The course contributes to the objectives of the master’s program related to the application of mathematical tools for interpreting, describing, and modeling structural problems.

A prior knowledge and understanding of the static behavior of planar truss and beam structures is recommended. The course includes theoretical lectures (module 1), exercises and laboratory sessions (module 2). 

In this course, students draw on approaches from Cultural Studies to examine the relationship between literature as a creative industry and literature as aesthetic practice. Focusing on 20th and 21st century works by authors traditionally situated at ‘the margins’ of nation-based literary systems, students ask what role marketing and the literary industry might have to play in how a writer’s voice becomes heard. In doing so, students take up Graham Huggans’ suggestion that a boom in postcolonial literature has been accompanied by a fetishization of difference or a ‘marketing of the margins’ which is at odds with many of the positions espoused in that literature. Students move beyond the Anglophone context in order to explore the application of this idea to authors from a range of countries and texts originally written in French, German, and Spanish.