Italy

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 examines the history and the contemporary use of Geopolitics in order to critically examine the political geographies of European imperialism, cold war, and post-cold war geopolitics, and the contemporary geopolitical landscapes. In particular, questions of borders, migrations, and biopolitics are discussed in relation to the making of the European Self and its associated geographies. The postcolonial and the decolonial are also presented by taking into consideration a geographical perspective.

Exploring Rome is divided into two components: language instruction (mostly in class), and a culture component (mostly on-site). The course is structured for exposure to the language and the opportunity to engage directly with Italian culture. The language component of the course provides the tools and skills to navigate the city and complete tasks in real-life situations and specific contexts. Through small group work, the course builds basic communicative structures to react effectively to authentic communicative situations. The culture component of the course investigates different aspects of Italian life by making Rome its classroom. Onsite lectures complement and contextualize the language component by studying the city’s history, its traditions, and current events in situ.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is generally restricted to local graduate level students and requires the instructor's direct permission to enroll. Enrollment by special permission only. This course offers an introduction to management consulting. A particular focus of the is given to the role of consultants in the strategic decision making of firms, to the management tools used by management consulting firms, to the methodology for the of top management decision making. At the end of the course, participants have a methodical approach to managerial problem solving in a business company. The course discusses topics including: development of a real business case to be solved in teams; management consulting toolbox; principles of management consulting written and oral communication; M&A; and digital transformation.

How investors make decisions is determined by human emotion, biases, and cognitive limitations of the mind in processing and responding to information. This course looks at behavioral finance (how investors and markets behave) and experimental finance (principles of designing experiments in finance). It investigates and uses hands-on experiments for the following current topics and applications: nudging; explaining trading behavior (including the role of subjective expectations, overconfidence, risk appetite, emotions, and attention); exploring market bubbles; understanding bank runs (investigating causes, contagions, and preventions); finding the optimal financial communication to clients; and testing the value of financial advice.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course is centered on the relationships between Italian Literature and Visual Culture, from the second half of the twentieth century to the first decade of the new millennium, with a focus on photography, graphic novel, advertising, cinema, television, and videogames. Special attention is placed on the identification and analysis of the interactions between the different languages and their contextualization in Italy’s contemporary cultural environment. Course topics change yearly. The 2023 topic is: A Transmedia Longseller: IL NOME DELLA ROSA (THE NAME OF THE ROSE) by Umberto Eco.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course introduces solution algorithms for nonlinear optimization problems that are the basis of many machine learning tools which find applications in telecommunications, electronics, automatic control, and decision support systems. The course is divided into two modules. The first module introduces solution algorithms for nonlinear optimization problems. Topics in this section include: nonlinear optimization: introduction to mathematical programming, models, and algorithms; nonlinear models: unconstrained optimization and constrained optimization; relaxations and penalty algorithms; convex optimization: Lagrangian relaxation and barrier algorithm; and applications of convex optimization to support vector machine and deep learning. The second module introduces basic machine learning techniques for classification and learning. Topics in this section include: algorithms for clustering and classification; neural networks; and laboratory activity on applications for machine learning algorithms arising in real applications.

This is an advanced intermediate Italian Language course offered by the University Language Center (CLA) for University of Bologna exchange students. The course is at the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) B2 level. Enrolment in this course is based on an entrance exam. Students enrolled in this course have generally successfully completed ITAL 132 as part of the UCEAP Intensive Language Program (ILP). At the end of the course students can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization. They can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. They can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. The course covers the following grammatical points: use of verbs in the past - all tenses; the conditional and past conditional; the present subjunctive vs. the imperfect; the subjunctive: all form of the past; concordance of subjunctive verbs; the passive voice; relative pronouns; and presenting the future in the past. This course is available to UCEAP students in the spring semester only. The course is graded pass/no pass only.

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 explores some of the main dimensions of Soviet and Russian history in the 20th century. The course provides an overview of the social and political evolution of the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991 and its legacy for post-Soviet Russia. The course discusses topics including: the main stages of social changes and political governance from the 1917 Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union; the social and political legacies of the Soviet experience for Russia after 1991; the major scholarly debates on State/society relationships; and how to contextualize Soviet social and political history in a broader framework, analyzing key junctures when Soviet international concerns or ambitions interacted with its domestic agenda.

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 offers basic knowledge of the methodologies and of the perspectives of near eastern art history and the reading of symbolism embedded in the material record. The course examines how to recognize and critically examine visual materials, and fine tune the critical tools needed for interpreting ancient visual communication. The course explores elements on sculptural complexes of the Bronze and Iron age in Syria and South-East Anatolia with particular reference to visual communication and architectural settings. Several contexts are analyzed according to a critical approach which are discussed together with the students also through the main scientific references on the relevant subjects. The course discusses sculptural complexes of the Bronze and Iron age in Syria and South-East Anatolia: visual communication and architectural settings.

This intermediate foundation course 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 intermediate level. Intermediate students are required to have completed a beginning drawing course as a prerequisite. Some assignments for the intermediate students will vary from the assignments given to beginning students. Intermediate students' assignments and progress are held to a higher standard than beginning students. The intermediate students are expected to perform at a higher level.