English

The course provides students with a solid understanding of how the economy functions at the aggregate level, equipping them with the analytical tools needed to interpret and evaluate macroeconomic conditions and policy decisions. By combining theoretical frameworks with real-world applications, the course develops students' ability to analyze contemporary macroeconomic developments from both national and international perspectives. Particular emphasis is placed on the role and effectiveness of fiscal, monetary, structural, and trade policies in addressing macroeconomic challenges, stabilizing economic fluctuations and fostering sustainable growth. The course strengthens students’ capacity to critically assess macroeconomic policies and their broader implications, skills essential for careers in economics, policymaking, finance, and international business. Prerequisites: The knowledge of the basic concepts covered in an introductory Microeconomics course is strongly recommended. The course also makes regular use of elementary mathematical tools and graphical analysis.

This course introduces students to the scientific study of International Relations (IR). It explores the principles that shape international politics and illustrates these principles with examples drawn from history and contemporary international affairs. More specifically, the course aims to introduce students to the major concepts and key theories of IR, develop their skills to critically analyze and evaluate theoretical propositions, and generally increase their awareness and understanding of current international affairs. To achieve these goals, students (1) discuss the evolution of the study of cooperation and conflict, (2) acquire the necessary formal theoretical tools (e.g., spatial modeling, game theory) and empirical methods of analysis to systematically dissect the patterns of cooperation and conflict in IR, and (3) examine specific instances of cooperation and conflict in a variety of issue areas, i.e., study such phenomena as war, terrorism, trade, international investment and monetary relations, and the protection of human rights and the global environment.

Drawing on methods developed by ground-breaking musicians, performers, dancers, writers and screen artists, students will be given practical strategies to take risks with their imagination. Hands-on workshops will provide students with the courage to discover through collaboration. 

This course discusses psychological and neuroscientific studies on visual awareness and voluntary actions. It selects and critically assesses influential publications in this field and discuss their wider implications.

This seminar examines curatorial perspectives and exhibition-making in Berlin, with a focus on past, present, and future approaches to cultural production in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It offers a specialized and contextualized study of exhibitions in Berlin about HIV/AIDS from the 1980s to the present, examining how curatorial practices have evolved alongside shifts in public discourse, activism, and artistic production. Visits to Berlin-based institutions and conversations with both local and international artists and curators grant students first-hand insight into contemporary curatorial strategies. The seminar is particularly suited for students interested in academic and curatorial research within the framework of socially engaged art practices. Coursework includes reading theoretical texts, watching relevant films, participating in group discussions, and critically analyzing artworks and exhibitions. Students also engage with curatorial writing strategies and develop a final project: a conceptual proposal for an exhibition that responds to the HIV/AIDS epidemic within Berlin's cultural and political context.

This course provides an overview of the challenges and opportunities for research psychologists with the growing development of social robotics. This is achieved by examining the state of the art in this domain, investigating social robotics use in clinical disorders, and exploring different areas where social robotics research holds potential to inform our understanding of human cognition and behavior.

This course examines artificial intelligence and its real-world applications. It aims to give students a historical overview of the development of AI and its underlying concepts, to understand its current and potential impact on individuals, organizations, and society, and to analyze and discuss the future of AI and its potential applications. Additionally, the course will equip students with the knowledge to use AI for productivity and creativity and to engage with AI responsibly, considering ethical considerations and responsibilities.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. Students learn about the theories at the core of the most relevant contemporary art practices of the late XX and early XXI centuries, maturing their skills to analyze and contextualize the main artistic currents since the 1950s. Students learn to critically evaluate the works of art and carry out independent research. In particular, they acquire the tools to interpret the peculiarities of today’s art in relation with media and politics.

The course explores fundamental moments in the history of contemporary art from the 1950s to the present, focusing on the main methodological, thematic, and theoretical issues that have emerged in the visual arts. It opens with a discussion on various genres of painting of the post-war period, from Abstract Expressionism to Art Brut, in reference to the theories of “modernist painting” elaborated by Clement Greenberg. The second lecture discusss tactics such as détournement, assemblage and replica, variously developed within artistic movements that emerged in the 1960s in response to consumerist culture, from Situationism to Pop Art. Then, other artistic movements and practices of the 1960s are explored, this time based on the idea of art as a “process”, i.e. Minimalism and conceptual art in the third lecture, and some hybrid practices developed in response to or relationship with technology, i.e. video, cybernetics and intermedia, in the fourth lecture. The fifth and sixth lecture are dedicated to performative practices developed in reaction to some institutions, now those of art and now those of society, from Fluxus to feminist art. The next two lectures, seven and eight, focus on crucial issues of postmodernist art such as the appropriationist approach of the Pictures Generation and pastiche. While the ninth lecture focuses on anti-academic art practices, born in so-called underground or subcultural environments, from the tenth lecture onwards examine currents that have emerged since the 1990s in relation to the impact of globalization, the liberalist logic of media and economy, and the profusion of digital technologies and the Internet. These include: Post Human, Abject Art, YBAs, Relational Aesthetics, installation art, socially engaged art, post-Internet art and various contemporary forms of painting, photography and video installation.

This is a research project carried out under the guidance of a supervisor at the Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain (SIDB) at the University of Edinburgh.

This is an independent research course with research arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific research topics vary each term and are described on a special project form for each student. A substantial paper is required. The number of units varies with the student’s project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student’s special study project form.