English

This course familiarizes students with basic conceptual frameworks that underpin the study of English language in use, which constitutes useful knowledge for their future teaching practice. The course explores the intricacies of English language practices in diverse regional, social, cultural, and interpersonal contexts, with emphasis on practical knowledge and skills acquisition that enables students to develop research designs, collect and analyze language data, and apply theoretical frameworks to their findings. Through student-led discussions, presentations, and mini research projects, the course deepens one's understanding of the complexities of English language use and its practical applications in language education. This course is recommended for the students who are considering a graduate thesis project in the field of English language studies, as well as those aspiring to become English language teachers. 
 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The program deals with the history of the Ottoman Empire with an emphasis on its geography, frontiers, and relations based on certain units/themes of study. The program follows a chronological approach and a thematic division of topics. The themes are chosen to elaborate on watershed moments in the history of the Empire, and to reflect on the Empire’s role in global events.

After completing the course, students have a detailed historical knowledge of the main cultural, social, and political transformations that took place in the Islamic world and in the Middle East from the 13th century to the contemporary era. They have analytical skills and are familiar with the theoretical, methodological and technical tools of the historical-religious disciplines and the social sciences for the study of relations between confessions and religions in the context of the Ottoman Empire, with attention to the socio-political implications of the interaction among groups. They are able to evaluate religious phenomena and dynamics in local and global socio-cultural contexts, to identify socio-cultural matrix of religions, as well as connections, developments, persistences, and transformations of religious phenomena in complex societies such as those of the Ottoman Empire and to address and solve issues related to the management of religious pluralism. They apply investigative methodologies to critically engage with primary and secondary sources useful for exploring the significance of the Ottoman Empire for world history. They are able to communicate in written and oral form using the different models and registers of communication of the historical disciplines and to give form, including project design, to the results of research, supporting with complete evidence the information on which they base their conclusions and accounting for the methodologies used. They know how to communicate, edit and publish research results including digital data.

This course addresses various dimensions of social problems both theoretically and empirically using a social constructionist perspective.  The course begins with brainstorming social problems, categorizing them by its nature, extracting common features of these various problems, as well as discussing key concepts of social problem construction such as “claims-maker,” “audiences,” “constructing victims/villains,”  "objectivism vs constructivism" by the text book. The class then engages in a “social problems game," addressing their own topics, or following big issues: Anthropocene, Domestication, Zoonosis, Climate change, One health approach, SDGs (contradiction or compromise), Sufficiency economy, Green new deal, etc.

The second half of the term focuses on problem solving, particularly poverty alleviation. Students are invited to one mountain village in an Asian country, virtually, where they analyze the problems in that village and formulate the development project using PCM (Project Cycle Management) tools. After this practical exercise, the class further studies the theoretical base of social deviation, or the formation of social order, reading Adam Smith on moral philosophy and Amartya Sen's capability approach. 

Throughout the course, participants are expected to consider: i) whose social problems we address; ii) causes and consequences of them; and iii) what changes needed. The contents of the course are subject to change according to participants’ interests and progress.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course focuses on interpretative views applied to premodern art history in thought-provoking/groundbreaking exhibitions and catalogues. Students thus familiarize themselves with the major perspectives and challenging topics that have engaged curators and specialists in the last decades, dealing with a sensitive plurality of contexts and cultural geographies. Through discussions and case studies, students can prove different critical paths, going beyond stylistic influence and center/periphery paradigms through artistic circulation to connected and rhizomatic histories. The course considers how ideologies, authoritative canons, racialization/stigmatization, imperialism, and colonialism have been the core forces behind collecting, trade, and the acknowledgment of aesthetic value, as well as museums’ storytelling and catalogs narratives.

The course explores the Mediterranean Renaissance and Global Renaissance/Baroque art by offering insights into intertwining key thematic issues: Global Catholicism, propaganda, power strategies, transformation of models, distributed agency, artistic migration, borderlands/disconnected paths, constellations/networks, wars anxiety, climate crisis, religious changes, political sovereignty, moral authority, and social emotions. Through the study of specific exhibitions, catalogues, and seminal essays/research projects, the course reframes curatorial practices, considering paintings but also prints, early modern illustrated books, devotional objects, maps, folding screens, and other pivotal materials in Europe and the Americas.

Students learn to interpret premodern and early modern art between the 14th and 18th centuries using methodological tools that question the "Global Renaissance." Beyond Eurocentric approaches, the course focuses on the challenges and applications of methods, theories, and concepts, connecting art histories through global perspectives and addressing cultural transformations and diverse historiographical approaches in curatorial practices.

This course provides an introduction to the application of various forecasting techniques. It introduces quantitative methods and techniques for time series modeling, analysis, and forecasting. Emphasis is also put on the applications in economic and business related areas. Computing is an integral part of this course, therefore all students are expected to do data analysis, modeling, and forecasting with computer programming software. The focus of the course is to use past data to predict the future. The key concept is that there is an underlying process that gives rise to the data. Using statistical properties of that process, we can develop forecasts. Forecasting methodology is presented in a lecture format in the first part of each class meeting. The application, however, is the centerpiece of the presentation. In the second part of the class meeting, students work on in-class applications. The course starts start with simple models that are widely used in business and progresses to modern methods that are used by professional forecasters and economists. It studies basic components of time-series data, such as trend, seasonal, and cyclical components, as well as basic model specification techniques, such as moving average and auto regressions, used in the forecasting of time-series. All forecasting methods are illustrated with detailed real world applications designed to mimic typical forecasting situations. The course uses applications not simply to illustrate the methods but also drive home an important lesson, the limitations of forecasting, by presenting truly realistic examples in which not everything works perfectly. Examples of the applications include, but are not limited to, forecasting retail sales, hotel occupancy, fishery output, consumer loan requests, predicting expansion of fast food chain stores, modeling and forecasting macroeconomic activity indices such as Gross Domestic Product, unemployment and inflation, modeling development of a small open economy, forecasting New York Stock Exchange index and currency exchange rates and many other applications.

The course examines how meaning is socially constructed through media. Semiotic analysis reveals the meanings of various signs which may be overlooked in everyday life and to open up the possibility of different interpretation.
 

As an introductory and interdisciplinary course to the study of media and culture, classes will incorporate academic approaches from both the social sciences as well as the arts and humanities. The primary goal of the course is to broaden perspectives to become effective citizens who can critically engage various issues pertaining to contemporary media and culture. 

This course introduces fundamental concepts of econometrics and data analysis that form the basis for data driven decision making, empirical analysis of causal relationships, and forecasting. It covers matrices and their use in linear regression analysis, probability distributions and their role in carrying out valid data approximations, and estimation methods and their importance in producing credible results of any data analysis. The course also introduces programming with R, which is the main programming language of statistical computing. It starts out with basic R operations and then, with time, students learn about ways to write their own functions in R.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course addresses the relationship between archaeology, media, and the public in the complex process of archaeological communication. The first part of the course examines the individual concepts and the evolution of archaeological communication over time, with a specific focus on the last twenty years and the role of digital dissemination. The second part of the course considers the specific case of the KALAM Project, specifically the different ways of communicating to the public the archaeological realities present in the territory of Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

By the end of the course students have an in-depth knowledge of the relationship between archaeological research, cultural heritage, media (meaning both traditional and new digital media), and the public. They will be critically aware of the strategies of communication and dissemination of archaeological knowledge adopted by the various people involved in the job of dissemination and enhancement. The knowledge acquired makes students proficient in assessing, monitoring, and reporting in the media on communication activities relating to archaeology and cultural heritage.

This course is an introduction to the theories and issues in the international public policy, focused primarily on economic policy, given how critical this issue is to domestic and international cooperation. In particular, the course examines the political, economic, and social conditions conducive to the development of cooperative behavior on a global scale. The main questions and puzzles in this sub-field, and the discipline's best answers to date, will be covered.

This course examines a variety of social and cultural issues analytically as well as critically. Focusing mainly on Japanese culture and society, this course requires students to read books written on topics such as groupism, communication, government bureaucracy, environmental protection, the education system, gender relations, internationalization, and/or political culture. Students will write short papers, participate in discussion, and make a group presentation. In 2025, the course focuses on cities in the developing world.