Italian

This course focuses on the general themes of Late Antique Archaeology: Issues of definition and periodization; Architecture, urban planning, and sculpture; Settlement dynamics and funerary practices; Iconography and visual culture; Structures of production and issues of economic-commercial exchanges; Relationship between Christianity and other religions in the Late Antique period.

By the end of the course, students know the definition of Late Antiquity and the issues related to periodization in that historical period, have a basic knowledge of the material evidence and are able to recognize the importance of the relationship between objects and contexts; they can find their way around the scientific literature and, through critical reading of the archaeological records, begin to understand the significance of artefacts, buildings, and figurative documents, connecting them to cultural, social, political, and religious phenomena. They have learnt to listen, understand, and debate respectfully with different viewpoints, and spot tie-ups among different disciplines.

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 is mainly aimed at those who have not already done historical-linguistic studies and aims to provide an overview of the events of Italian linguistic history and the main problems of diachronic reconstruction: internal and external linguistic history, literary language and common language, relationship between the center and periphery, question of the linguistic norm, factors of Italianization. The course is divided into a general part, dedicated to some moments of linguistic history of Italian from its origins to the contemporary age through the analysis of exemplary texts, and in some lessons focused on the history of the teaching of Italian through the centuries.

The student enrolled in this course is expected to have just reached a moderate skill in Linguistics and Italian grammar. On successful completion of the course, the student will be able to learn and apply in practice the knowledge acquired, to use analyzing tools and to apply the methods of learning discussed in the course, in order to examine in depth and revise in complete autonomy his\her own knowledge. The student will be able to use the main instruments for the evaluation of a text, literary or not. He/she will be able to analyze any text and to relate it to the cultural and literary context in which it was produced, to its way of dissemination and reception, in a multidisciplinary perspective.

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 title of the course is "FEMMINISMS." Women’s thinking and movements, in Europe, in the Americas, in the Arab context, in southern Africa and in the Asian context are analysed in chronological order, but also showing the deep connections that were established between the various areas of the world. Alongside some thematic reconstructions, starting from the American Revolution and the French Revolution and the publication of the first "manifestos" of contemporary feminism, the lectures analyze particularly important texts and experiences still hard to define within the scope of “classical” history (centered upon the West and its successive “waves”) of the feminisms. At the end, the students understand the complexity of the females thinking and movements in their peculiarity and in a transnational and global perspective. Students acquire in-depth knowledge of the origins and development of women's movements in Italian Early Modern and Contemporary history, through methodological investigations which allow them to research autonomously.

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 aim of the course is to illustrate the diversity of the world's languages and the implications of this diversity for a general theory of language and its use, discussing the main methods and results of the typological-functionalist approach and of the approaches developed in the pragmatic field. Through the comparison of different languages, belonging to the various families attested in the world, the theoretical and methodological bases for the analysis of structural, semantic and pragmatic diversity of human languages are discussed in detail, also in relation to cultural diversity. At the end of the course, students are able to trace different languages back to different 'linguistic types' and have an up-to-date knowledge of threatened and endangered languages; have a thorough knowledge of the notions of linguistic and pragmatic universals; be able to set up and carry out autonomously an interlinguistic comparison with respect to single linguistic and pragmatic phenomena; be familiar with the main techniques of data collection and linguistic documentation; and be able to orient themselves within the descriptive grammars of different languages.

The course is organized in five parts. For each topic, different perspectives and theoretical proposals are compared, in the light of the most recent scientific debate:

1. Introduction to linguistic diversity
2. The world's languages and their health status.
3. Analyzing linguistic diversity: data collection and methods of analysis
4. Linguistic typology: seeking order in chaos
5. Explorations of linguistic diversity

The topics addressed in the second part of the course are listed below. The list may be subject to change depending on the specific interests of the attending students.

• Different languages construct words differently: morphological types
• Subject and object in world’s languages: syntactic types
• The categorization of time and reality: languages without time markers, time and reality of nouns and adjectives
• Noun categories: genders (how many?) and number (beyond singular and plural...)
• Parts of speech: how are people, things, and events categorized? Are there languages without adjectives?
• The expression of gratitude in the world's languages: is saying 'thank you' a universal phenomenon or does it depend on education and culture?
• How to communicate misunderstanding? The expression of error and its repair in world languages
• Languages without AND and languages without OR: connectives beyond logical distinctions

A basic knowledge of general linguistics is required. Those who have never taken a basic linguistics exam will have to recover independently, by studying a basic manual (Berruto & Cerruti 2011 is suggested).

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 is organized in two sections:

Section A: lectures that introduce students to the key conceptual tools. This section analyzes the relationship between the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the international community within the framework of the prevailing development issues in the following periods: independence and the Cold War; Washington consensus; democratization; the third millennium; and the new international consensus on 'stability' and 'security'.

Section B: seminar classes for in-depth discussions of the Part A framework in view of a selection of country case-studies in sub-Saharan Africa, and for debating the new research questions that will come to light during classes. The main focus is the challenge of democracy in the 2000s: they are examined considering the local and international political priorities, the emphasis on security and the role of international cooperation policies.

At the end of the course, the student has acquired, in a critical manner and with reference to international academic research literature, a good knowledge of the political history of contemporary Africa in its international dimension. In particular, the student is able to: A) analyze and discuss the main elements of the political development and transformations of the political systems of contemporary Africa considering the internal, regional, and international context; B) analyze and discuss the main factors defining the role and location of Africa in contemporary global politics and international relations; C) analyze and evaluate empirically the development strategies and governance reforms, also in relation to the role of the international policies of the major donors; D) find and arrange documentary and bibliographic sources using libraries, databases, and websites, and organize, both verbally and by written essays, the knowledge acquired during the course.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. In Spring 2024, the course offered a special focus on the literature, photography, and illustration at the beginning of the 20th century: The collaboration between Henry James and Alvin Langdon Coburn. In analyzing this case study from the point of view of the genesis of the images and of the editorial context, this course reflects on the relationship between writing and visual culture, literature and photography, word and image within the framework of the technological, social, and cultural transformations that have marked the turn from the 19th to the 20th Century: from the rise of what Walter Benjamin has called the "technological reproduction" to the development of tourism and the emergence of a new imagery of space and places. The course provides the theoretical tools for interpreting literature in the new framework of visual culture which emerged at the threshold of modernity. Students acquire a deep knowledge of the relationships between verbal and visual texts in their multiple manifestations, and are familiar with the main theoretical categories and methodologies which have been elaborated by visual studies and have crossed (and transformed) literary studies themselves.

This course covers the essential lines of food history in an economic, social, and cultural perspective, based on reading documentary, narrative, literary, and scientific sources, by way of examples of document interpretation and an introduction to proper historical work. The course introduces the use of original documents, narratives, and literary and scientific sources as starting points for historical research. The course provides the general outlines of food history and food cultures, with special emphasis on Italian and European history between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Its 15 lectures are structured in such a way that each includes a theoretical part and an analytical part discussing sources relevant to the topic covered in part 1. Topics include: the birth of Food History as a discipline, methodology, birth, and evolution of dietetic science in the West, food in Antiquity and Middle Ages, food in Europe, food production and land management, city supply and markets, eating behaviors, food and social identities, birth of written cookbooks, dissemination of European gastronomic cultures, the Colombian Exchange, Italian identity in the kitchen, and history and myth.

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 provides advanced knowledge of the different moments of international relations and the development in Latin America from the 19th century to the present. The course provides the ability to: a) identify and compare the different interpretations of the history of development and international relations in Latin America; b) detect and analyze the features of continuity and discontinuity in the dynamics of the western hemisphere, in relation to changes in the international system; c) discuss, from a global perspective, the development models in Latin America from the 19th century to the present. The course presents the principal issues in the history of development and international relations in Latin America from independence to the 21st century. Starting from the analysis of the consequences, for the Latin American area, of the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, the course analyzes the international dimension of the processes of state building and, subsequently, of nation building, the inclusion of Latin American countries in the dynamics of the first globalization, the consolidation of the export-led growth strategy model, the transition to mass democracies and, in some cases, the structuring of populist regimes, the definition of the ISI development model, the evolution of the Pan-American system and, then, the inter-American diffusion of the dynamics of the Cold War, the diffusion of the Washington Consensus, of forms of regional integration and, later, of nationalist movements.

The Elementary Italian course provides students with the essential language skills to communicate effectively in common Italian contexts, covering the first level of Italian proficiency. Through a communicative approach and a strong emphasis on active participation, it helps students to quickly improve their ability to interact with Italians. Engaging in role-playing, group work, in and out of class task-based activities and oral and written tests, learners are immersed in the Italian language, reinforcing their listening, speaking, reading and writing abilities. Assignments and projects deepen their understanding of Florentine life and Italian culture. By the end of the course, students acquire foundational language skills as well as insights into Italy's rich cultural tapestry.