English

The course introduces and critically analyzes the major IR theoretical traditions. Because of the complexity of world politics, assumptions (i.e., criteria for thinking about what and how to study world politics) to guide our study are needed. The different traditions – or "-isms" – provide these assumptions and offer a set of different lenses through which to explore world politics. The course, through practical application of theories, explores the ways in which the main theoretical traditions compare and contrast.

This is a service-learning based project promoted by the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology in cooperation with the Projects and Mobility Office and it is designed for exchange students staying at the University of Padova for the entire academic year or spring semester. Students on this service-learning course participate in the program called Erasmus@School. Service-learning is an experiential educational method in which students engage in community service, reflect critically on this experience, and learn from it personally, socially, and academically. Students are involved in activities such as theater labs, foreign language learning, and science labs in a primary (six-10-year-olds) and secondary (11–13-year-olds) school in Padova. The course is graded pass/no pass only.

The objective of the course is to obtain insight into the endocrine system of the human body by studying illnesses that disturb this homeostatic control mechanism. Physiology deals with the explanation of the biological, physical, and chemical factors that are responsible for the origin, development, and progression of life. Students study the disturbances in physiological function (homeostasis) resulting in disease, to deepen their knowledge on human endocrinology. These disturbances are studied through the presentation of patient cases exemplified by hypertension, renal failure, infertility, steroid abuse, diabetes, and starvation. This course also studies the treatment of these diseases. The course prerequisite is Human Physiology.

Understanding consumption and consumer behavior is an essential part of the marketing process and key to the long-term success of any organization. This course focuses on the processes through which individuals or groups acquire, use, and dispose of products, services, or experiences. This course explores a range of approaches to consumption and consumer behavior, encouraging students to critically evaluate their relative merits. Accordingly, insights are drawn from a range of disciplines including psychology and economics, science and technology studies, sociology, cultural theory, and anthropology. In addition to exploring the significance of consumer behavior for commercial organizations, the course demonstrates how consumption is positioned as both a problem for and solution to a number of contemporary social and policy challenges.

This course explores the main concepts and principles of international environmental law. It looks at how international environmental law has emerged and developed, in particular by emphasizing the role and contribution of international courts and tribunals. The course also deals specifically with the legal regimes that have been shaped in order to preserve the global environment in different fields (climate change, biodiversity, desertification, water, ozone, chemical products, air pollution, genetically modified organisms, nanotechnologies). With the emergence of the concept of sustainable development, international environmental law is now at the crossroads of different regimes. In this context, the course analyzes the relationship between international environmental law and international trade (and/or investment) law as well as the relationship between international environmental law and human rights.

The course includes lectures on metal complexes and organometallics, descriptive transition-metal chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, solid-state chemistry and descriptive main-group chemistry.

Philosophers, and non-philosophers alike, have fought over the meanings, values and consequences of love and sexual desire from philosophy’s very beginning. The seminar addresses some of these controversial issues, their aporias and paradoxes, and encourages students to find their own interpretations and answers. We will discuss questions such as: Are there different forms of love? What are the differences, if any, between e.g. love and friendship? Is sex or sexual desire essential for love? Do we lose or find ourselves in love relationships? How do we change when we fall in love? Are we free or unfree when we are in a love relationship? How do power and love relate? How much aggressivity, hate and mastery are entailed in love bonds? The seminar will address these (and further) questions by concentrating on four models of love: (1) Love as union or fusion; (2) Love as knowledge; (3) Love as work on oneself; (4) Love as struggle. As conceptual basis for these models, two texts in particular will be read, analysed and discussed, an ancient one, Plato’s Symposium, and a modern one, which however draws upon ancient myths, Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea. The two texts will be studied in light of modern and contemporary insights and issues, as for example those raised by Hegel (and especially his master/slave figure), psychoanalysis, feminism, polyamory theory, and others. There will be space for students to (partially) participate in the articulation of the programme, and for practicing philosophy in some more ‘creative’ ways than usual (by for example staging philosophical theatrical scenes).

This course presents the main principles of International Political Economy (or Global Political Economy), which studies globalization, i.e. the reciprocal interaction between international relations, economics, and politics by gathering knowledge from history, international relations, politics, economics, and sociology in an innovative way. The course provides a broad overview of the frameworks of analysis, actors, institutions, issues, and processes responsible for international relations, the causes of war, inter-state economic competition, and the structural configuration of power in the global context. Therefore, it tries to analyze global affairs into a three-dimensional perspective: statist logic, market logic, and institutional logic. It also provides both academic skills and applies these skills for professional outcomes. The course relies on readings, class debates, and the study of factual cases.

This course focuses on introducing students to the core concepts of the Unix operating system and how to program this system. Today, Unix and Unix-like operating systems are ubiquitous; they are widely used in servers, embedded devices and have a growing desktop and mobile market (Linux, Mac OS X, Android etc.). This course teaches students how to develop applications for such systems, assuming no other software layer but OS. Students improve their existing C programming language skills and learn some key POSIX APIs to support designing and writing programs in a portable, maintainable fashion. They learn how to write multithreaded and multi-process applications as well as some basics of Unix networking. This is done through the Unix command line, and students learn basic tools and how to write shell scripts to automate common tasks. Students need a version of Unix installed on their own laptop (ideally Linux), help with this is provided in the first lab.