Italy

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 courses uses ten topics to explore how the global economy emerged in the past and how global trade and global empires changed the world. The first part of the course traces the connection between European colonial empires and the making of the global economy until the Industrial Revolution, and how the rise of the West impacted other world regions. The second part of the course discusses globalization and deglobalization and the shifts of global economic power in the modern age. This is modern economic history in a global context and focuses mainly on non-European regions.

This course explores the making of contemporary Europe diachronically and in a global context through four parts. It considers the plurality of “Europes” that emerged in the postwar period, including the institutional evolution of the European Communities and European Union, their challenges and their achievements. It situates the development of regional cooperation agreements within the global context of World War, decolonization, Cold War, economic crises, globalization, the Soviet collapse, and the turmoil of the early 21st century. It evaluates the the roles that different actors – including multilateral organizations and multinational corporations – played in shaping European governance. It equips students to apply this knowledge to their own analyses of contemporary political debates, through readings, discussions, and a capstone podcast project. 

This course introduces the broad array of disciplines dealing with the management of different types of institutions (firms, families, public administration) and with different degrees of specialization (manufacturing, service companies, firms operating in specific industries), analyzing their management, organization, performances, and the relationship they put in place with different stakeholders, namely customers. During the course, concepts and tools are presented, stressing in particular the conditions for the economic viability of cultural firms and institutions. More specifically, the course aims at: Transferring concepts and the basic management vocabulary; providing a unified view of firms’ structure and functioning, independently from their type (private, public, no profit) and industry; highlighting the role of the manager in charge of making a synthesis between multiple stakeholders with often conflicting goals, for the sake of the firm’s continuity; showing the specificity and the main managerial challenges for firms operating in cultural industries and often influenced by the political and institutional level, and for those characterized by a tension between creativity and industrial logic (design-based companies, fashion companies). 

In this course, major musical styles and genres of the 20th century, within and beyond the Western canon, are presented and discussed from the theoretical, aesthetic, and socio-cultural points of view. The first part of the course focuses on the mutual influences between jazz and classical music in the first half of the 20th century. An analysis of musical ensembles, forms, and other structural elements leads to an understanding of how and to what extent these two distinct musical worlds influenced each other and in some cases even blended, making the stylistic categorization of some works uncertain. The second part of the course provides an in-depth study of musical genres and listening approaches in relation to the radical technological transformations of the 20th century, which leads to a reflection on the concept of art music and the problem of value in music. Students learn to identify and distinguish musical trends; assess how musical movements have informed contemporary society and recent history, and how society and history have fostered certain musical movements and for what reason; and evaluate how the dialogue between music and technology has evolved over the past decades, and predict potential future scenarios. 

This course introduces the main kinds of derivatives, with an emphasis on pricing and hedging issues, and on how investors and corporations can use these instruments in practice. The main contents of the course are: introduction to financial derivatives; forwards, futures, and swaps (institutional apsects, pricing, hedging); options (institutional aspects, pricing, hedging); and basics of credit risk and credit derivatives. Prerequisites: a solid understanding of financial economics; familiarity with the mathematics of interest rates (discounting/compounding, equivalence of rates at different maturities), with basic statistics (expected values, standard deviation and variance, ordinary least squares), and calculus (limits, differentials, differentiation, Taylor expansions, partial differentiation, optimization, basic integration). 

This course will introduce you to an evidence-based roadmap and practical tools for gaining control, living a life you aspire to, and functioning effectively. Students will gain insight into their well-being and how it may impact their and others’ lives and work. This course offers an in-depth exploration of the intersection between social psychology and individual well-being. Field trips to historical sites, museums, and community organizations offer experiential learning and cultural immersion opportunities. Lectures delve into how social factors influence human behavior, cognition, and emotion, ultimately shaping our choices and overall health. Well-being is not about being happy. The pursuit of happiness falls short, while real contentment comes from living a fulfilling and meaningful life. Students will examine fundamental concepts in social psychology, such as social influence, conformity, obedience, group dynamics, attribution, and attitudes. They will gain insights into how these concepts manifest in real-life contexts and impact individual decision-making processes through theoretical frameworks and empirical research. The course emphasizes the role of social relationships, cultural norms, and societal structures in shaping perceptions of well-being and the pursuit of happiness. Students will critically evaluate theories and research findings regarding subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and the factors contributing to happiness.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. At the end of the course the student knows and understands: - the motivation and the components of the Data Mining process; - the general concepts, technologies and methodologies of Data Warehouse, OLAP and Data Lake, as enabling factors of the Data Mining process; - the principles and the most relevant use cases of a wide set of Machine Learning algorithms which are used to extract relevant and actionable information from large amounts of data. At the end of the course the student is able to: - design the main steps of a Data Mining process - choose the Machine Learning methods best suited for the process - evaluate the quality of the result in order to support strategic and operational decisions. The course is divided into two parts: Data Mining and Machine Learning.

This course provides students with a model of marketing appropriate for organizations operating in creative industries. The core concept of the model is the value for the customer. In creative industries this value is generated by transforming the creativity contained in creative products into intense and satisfactory customer experience. The course gives evidence to the cultural and organizational role of marketing within organizations operating in creative industries. This role consists in keeping organizations aligned to their markets, by means of the development of a broad and deep market knowledge and the building of long-lasting relations with customers through the continuous renovation of value propositions.

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 offers students a multidimensional perspective on the dynamic links between human societies and the environment, using insights from environmental, resource and ecological economics. After presenting the historical background of the discipline, the course provides a broad overview of how economic theory conceptualizes the problems of optimal pollution control and the efficient use of exhaustible and renewable natural resources. Several key sub-fields of environmental economics are analyzed and discussed, including the valuation of environmental goods, the measurement of sustainability, the links between economic growth and environmental degradation, the role of technological innovation as well as the behavioral aspects of environmental protection. Climate economic modelling is the main applied focus of the course. At the end of the course, students have a comprehensive understanding of the most relevant research areas in environmental and resource economics.

Specific topics covered:

• Weak and strong sustainability; environmental and ecological economics
• Economic growth and the environment
• Measures of sustainability
• Static and dynamic efficiency
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Depletable resource economics
• Renewable resource economics
• Climate change economics
• Environmental policy
• International environmental agreements