Italy

This is a special studies course with projects arranged between the student and a faculty member. The specific topics of study vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. The number of units varies with the student's project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student's special study project form.

This course investigates race/class and gender implications of the media generated immigration discourse in Europe, and Italy in particular, as a whole. That is, how individuals in Europe perceive immigration and distinguish among different movements of people. The course analyzes how what people perceive is generated and communicated, and in what way meaning is attributed and reacted with counter-narratives to that which is perceived. From the past to the present, through colonial and modern times to post WWII massive intra-European migrations, images and symbols of immigration remain political. How and why do they become so? Does theorizing the visual require a “grammar” of its own? How do images limit and enable securitization? How do figurations and discourses relate to and shape one another? Drawing upon examples from the last century as well as current media related discourses of asylum and migration in Europe at the continental, national and urban level, students participate in a group project that attempts to connect media politics to the concept of “community” in Rome. To this end, students’ analytical focal point is placed upon the city and suburbs of Rome where the presence of diverse immigrant communities offers opportunity for first-hand exploration of how effectively they and their second-generation individuals have been challenging the Italian political, economic, cultural mainstream and ultimately the same idea of citizenship from within the city. Students therefore experience first-hand how the Eternal city has changed in the past thirty years and how it is still changing beyond tourist stereotypes through a continual process of immigration and alteration.

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 focuses on gender studies (theories and methodologies) in diverse cultural contexts. Notions of identity and otherness, difference and diversity are analyzed with specific reference to the politics of the body. The course intends to favor the capability to deconstruct these notions in diverse texts (theoretical, literary, visual). 

This course covers literary texts, with specific reference to speculative fiction, and discusses diverse politics of the body in black feminist, postcolonial, decolonial, posthuman, and trans* studies. In particular, the course tackles the historical and discursive construction and "framing" (J. Butler) of the non-human: how it has been culturally appropriated; but investigates also different forms of resistance as well as transversal and transcultural (and trans-species) forms of alliances, questioning the possibility of imagining an episteme that expands the very category of the human, not only to those subjectivities that have never had complete access to it (R. Braidotti), but also to a series of new "bodies" that have never been associated with the idea of human, and therefore of life.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced students only. Enrolment is based on consent of the instructor. The course focuses on particular phases of Italian film history, following movements, themes, trends, and genres that have characterized the transnational paths of Italian films, from the silent era to contemporary cinema. Through the analysis of Italian films that have been internationally distributed, the course detects the elements that may have contributed to their international success or failure. The course focuses on the following films: GERMANIA ANNO ZERO (GERMANY YEAR ZERO, Roberto Rossellini, 1948); CRONACA DI UN AMORE (STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1950); LA CIOCIARA (TWO WOMEN, Vittorio De Sica, 1960); DJANGO (Sergio Corbucci, 1966); MIMÌ METALLURGICO FERITO NELL'ONORE (THE SEDUCTION OF MIMÌ, Lina Wertmüller, 1972); and NICO, 1988 (Susanna Nicchiarelli, 2017). The course uses methods from reception theory, production and distribution studies, and textual analysis. The course considers the evolving characteristics of the film distribution system, the differences and nuances between distribution and circulation, and between local, national, and transnational scale. The course investigates the evolution of film scholarship on Italian popular cinema, as well as Italian films' most exportable traits and what have defined them throughout the history of Italian cinema.

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 focuses on some of the main aesthetic traditions of the past century. Students acquire the conceptual and methodological tools enabling them to analyze the key issues that are central to the contemporary aesthetic debate, according to a mainly theoretical and problematic approach. The new paradigms provided by the theory of mind suggest today a remodeling of the notion of the aesthetic experience starting from a reconsideration of the traditional conceptions of perception and expression. Merleau-Ponty's thought considered a turning point in the passage. The course aims to examine this phenomenological reflection by comparing it with current outcomes that also derive from cognitive sciences and studies on evolutionism that can contribute to shedding new light on the particularity of the aesthetic dimension.

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. At the end of the course, students are able to: identify and critically analyze the major research traditions and theories in the study of collective violence; distinguish the major forms of collective violence, identifying the causes and dynamics; link theory with empirical analysis on the subject of collective violence. The course examines different types of collective violence, including violence occurring in civil wars, instances of state repression, mafia and gang violence. The course is divided in three sections. The first section explores classic types of “political violence” (such as civil wars, revolutions, and terrorism) looking at their origins and dynamics. The second section deals with violence perpetrated by states (such as repressions and genocides) and violence that occurs within states that does not challenge their existence or regime (such as that perpetrated by organized crime and gangs). The third section looks at the organizations that “produce” violence, and namely at insurgent and mafia groups, discussing their emergence, their internal functioning, their relations with violence, and their demise.

This course provides a core of knowledge of Italy's post-Unification history, grounding students in the political, economic, and social development of the country. Commencing with the nation-state's formation, the analysis of issues surrounding Italy's early identity, society, and political structures reveal many of the problems that subsequent regimes have sought to address. After developing a solid grounding in the formation and establishment of the new nation state, the course explores the impact of World War One upon the interwar period of Fascist Italy. After establishing what Fascism was and what it meant for Italian people, consideration turns to the Second World War, the fall of Italian Fascism and its longterm legacy upon the postwar republic. Examination of post-1945 Italy considers the influence of America and the Cold War upon the internal battle for political control between the Left and the Catholic Right. This period also focuses on Italy's economic recovery and re-entry into "normal" diplomatic relations that was rubber-stamped by the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. With the country's foreign relations stabilized, attention turns to the internal crises of insurrection, terrorism, mafia activity, and corruption that led to Tangentopoli, the collapse of the old political order, and the rise of Silvio Berlusconi. The course concludes by examining the rise of the contemporary political phenomenon of the Five Star Movement and the Lega.

This course provides students with a sound basis for communicating effectively and accurately in oral and written Italian. Students obtain proficiency in basic Italian spelling and pronunciation. Elementary Italian grammar and syntactic structures are covered, especially the use of nouns and adjectives and regular and irregular verbs in the present and past tense. Authentic materials (songs, videos, advertisements, and film clips) are used in a communicative-based approach, and emphasis is placed on the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students participate in several sessions of language exchange with Italian university students, and field trips take them outside the classroom to engage with the city and Romans to reinforce the grammatical skills learned in class. The course is conducted entirely in Italian.

The course provides analytical and critical tools aimed at knowledge, enhancement and communication of cultural heritage sites, applying the theoretical and practical methodologies of Digital Humanities. The course introduces the principal methods of investigating and visualizing urban historical contexts and their long-term transformations. The course comprises the fields of Urban History and Architectural Representation. In addition to traditional sources and interpretative models, students are introduced to digital technologies, enabling them to experiment with new applications for digital urban history. This is achieved through in-depth case studies developed through teamwork. The course comprises a number of general urban history lessons, whose content ranges from modern to contemporary cities. Their focus rests on the methods, visual and textual sources, and the analytical tools necessary for understanding urban and territorial settlements in both European and international contexts. A series of lectures will be dedicated to specific topics: the dynamics of creation of the built space; the relationships between center and periphery, urban cartography, and the development of a city’s everyday infrastructure. Lessons then focus on water cities, particularly on the case study of Venice’s lagoon. Emphasis is placed on analyzing its processes of growth and urban development, its principal buildings and their reuse, covering the chronological period ranging from the 16th century to the present day. The course also includes seminar activities and site visits to some lagoon islands. Both these experiences foster the physical knowledge of the Venetian environment and its descriptive textual and visual sources. Building on the study and critical interpretation of historical materials and using GIS and 3D modeling tools, students, divided into small working groups, reconstruct the historical stratigraphy and the ancient conformation of over sixty islands shaping the Venetian archipelago, investigating them either at the urban or architectural scale.