English

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is divided in two modules. The aim of the first module is to provide knowledge about vehicle dynamics. Theoretical and numerical approaches are discussed to this end, as tools that allow students to predict the performance of cars in terms of longitudinal dynamics, lateral dynamics, handling, comfort, and stability. The aim of the second module is to provide the theoretical basis and the practical skills required to design embedded hardware and firmware compliant with industrial standards (safety, interoperability, maintainability). In addition, model-based design and automatic code generation using Matlab/Simulink is considered.

This course allows students to explore sound-based interaction methods in the context of new music, live performance, sound installation, and design by looking at creative approaches to using computers and code. Lectures cover a range of areas based on the development of interactive software systems for manipulating, sampling and synthesizing sound in real-time. Students investigate these aspects and apply them through coding their own projects in relation to areas such as interactive sound design, digital musical instrument design, data sonification, sound therapy, algorithmic composition, and audio- visual installation and performance. Projects are developed using an accessible software programming language such as Max.

This course explores modern Japan’s twentieth century environmental history, specifically focusing on how, when, and why birds and their habitat have been threatened by hunting, collecting, trade, war, pollution, tourism, and urbanization. How and why did some species become extinct, while others survived? The course is based on discussions about primary and secondary source readings, and occasionally material culture items such as postcards, postage stamps and posters. By the end of the course students should be familiar with important events, issues, and texts related to the environmental history of modern Japan.

Haunted castles, labyrinthine catacombs, wailing ghosts, horrifying revelations, mad scientists, and undead antagonists. These are all part of the constellation of signs associated with Gothic literature. Nowadays, echoes of the historical Gothic are part of pop culture and academic theory alike; in Mark Fisher’s words, “The ghosts are swarming at the moment. Hauntology has caught on. It’s a zeitgeist.” This seminar aims to take a step back and look at where it all started. To this end, we will read key texts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and examine Gothic aesthetics, temporality, and topology in context. We will try to answer questions such as: what are Gothic literature’s historical/cultural origins? What anxieties were embodied and explored through it? And how did it evolve into the 19th and 20th centuries?

This course explores the fluctuating significance of racial slavery for the development of American and African American literary tradition. It departs from investigation of the idea that particular approaches to selfhood, writing, and freedom arose from the institution of slavery and in particular grew with the slaves’ forced exclusion from literacy and their distinctive relationship with Christianity. Using Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a central point of reference, students look at the development of abolitionist reading publics and the role of imaginative literature in bringing about the demise of slavery. That controversial text also provides a means to consider the relationship of sentimentalism to suffering and identification as well as the problems arising from the simultaneous erasure and re-inscription of racial categories, as oppression and as emancipation. When formal slavery ended, new literary habits emerged in response to the memory of it and the need imaginatively to revisit the slave past as a means to grasp what the emergent world of civic and political freedoms might mean and involve. Other issues covered include the disputed place of imaginative writing in the educational bodies that were created for ex-slaves and their descendants, the issues of genre, gender, and polyvocality in abolitionist texts, the problems of representation that arose in the plantation’s litany of extremity and suffering, and the contemporary significance of slavery in the culture of African American particularity.

This introductory foundation course for beginners investigates the various materials, skills, and expressive issues involved in drawing the city of Florence, its architecture, sculptures, and the human figure from the live model. Students explore a range of compositional issues such as figure/ground relationships, light and shade, perspective, line and shape, value and color, texture, anatomy, contrapposto, and design.  Students draw on site in the city of Florence as well as in the classroom. Both are used in conjunction with exploring diverse approaches to the learning of drawing fundamentals. Emphasis is placed on drawing from perception while focusing on different cultural conventions relating to space, perspective, the human figure, architecture, anatomy, and proportion. The course includes trips to on-site locations in the city of Florence: its piazzas, gardens, museums, as well as a visit to an artist studio. There are two versions of the FOUNDATIONS OF DRAWING: DRAWING IN THE CITY OF FLORENCE, a beginner level and an intermediate level, this course is the beginning level.

This version of the Medical Ethics course includes an Independent Study Project (ISP) done under the direction of the instructor. The ISP is 10-12 pages and counts for 1/3 of the overall grade for the course. This course provides insights into the main concepts of social psychology, human behavior, and health. Our thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and actions have an effect on our health, well-being, and the choices we make concerning our health. Social psychology looks at how our thinking and actions are influenced by other people and social norms. In this course, students learn how the principles of social psychology are relevant to our health. Can social psychology explain why there are health disparities among people with different socioeconomic backgrounds? How can social psychological principles help to change someone’s attitude or behavior? Is our health behavior influenced by social pressure? Do you start or quit smoking because your friends tell you so? These and other questions are discussed and answered during the current course using scientific literature in the field of social psychology and health. To understand the role and application of social psychology, the course looks at specific examples within the field of health promotion, health education, disease prevention, and work-related health issues. In addition, students learn about relevant research methods within the field of social psychology and how to apply them.

This course develops an intersectional understanding of gender and media research, examining the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Interrogating a broad range of media forms, it introduces key concepts within gender and media scholarship and equips students with the theoretical and methodological tools for undertaking independent research projects. Responding to key debates and events in current popular media culture, topics can include the shifting constructions of femininity, masculinity, transgender, and LGBTIQ+ subjectivities; feminist approaches to media production; industry appropriations of empowerment ideals and "woke capitalism"; and emerging trends of celebrity feminisms. 

This course examines the psychology of experiencing cultural difference and investigates the cultural differences between Japan and other countries. Culture affects us at the level of the unconscious mind and understanding cultural difference requires the process of deep culture learning. The class has two parts, 1) the psychology of deep culture, and 2) analyzing cultural difference. The goal of this course is to gain a deeper understanding of how culture shapes our minds as well as a deeper understanding of Japan and other cultural communities.

This course introduces the field of environmental economics, which is concerned with the impact of the economy on the environment, the significance of the environment to the economy, and the appropriate way of regulating economic activity so that a balance is achieved among environmental, economic, and other social goals. It discusses how economic analysis can guide public policy to efficient utilization of these resources in a world of increasing scarcity and competing demands. The course investigates why unregulated markets cause environmental problems, what the socially optimal degree of environmental protection is and how can it be determined, and how the government can regulate the economy to protect the environment more efficiently. It equips the toolkit of an environmental economist and discusses the major environmental problem of our time: global warming. Moreover, the course discusses other environmental issues such as air pollution and biodiversity loss.