University of Bologna

At the end of the course, the student has an active and passive basic knowledge of the Spanish language. In particular, the student is able to: read, take notes, follow a discussion in Spanish; deal with specialist economic and political language in Spanish-speaking cultures. The linguistic content information is selected according to the CEFR levels for Spanish. The four skills are developed (reading comprehension, writing, speaking, and listening). In this first part of the course, the focus is on the linguistic aspect, which gives the possibility to deepen the required cultural, historical and social issues in the second part. At the end of this course, students reach B1 level.

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, students have a thorough understanding of the decision-making processes of European Union policies and the actors involved in EU policies. From the economic and social to the digital and multimedia fields, students are able to evaluate the impact of regulation at European level on the different sectors of society. The course is divided into two parts and ends with two seminars on themes dealt with beforehand. 

Part I. Understanding the European Union: 

• The foundations of the EU project: Federal integration, a conceptual approach resulting from a mix of economic integration and federalism. The two levels of governance: central and national levels. The principle of subsidiarity. The evolution of the EU’s policy portfolio and policy processes over the year.
• Who does what in Brussels: The main institutions the EU, their role and tasks. The influence exercised by the lobbies and civil society organizations in shaping the policy agenda and the decisional process. Policy roles, functions and the distribution of power within the various institutions and amongst the Member States.
• The EU’s decision making process: The various decisional processes and procedures. The setting of the EU political agenda, its strategic objectives and policy priorities. Regulation, self-regulation and co-regulation. The life of a EU law and its impact of the life of its people.
• Economic integration as catalyst for further political integration: The process of completion of the internal market, the backbone of the EU. The 4 fundamental freedoms and Community method, the main decision making process. The ordinary legislative procedure and new forms of governance.
• A Union of values: Democracy, human rights and the Rule of Law are identitarian, foundation elements of the EU and of our “way of living”.

Part II. EU Media Policy: balancing freedom of expression and other fundamental rights online. 5 case studies.

• The process of liberalization and regulation of the European audiovisual market.
• The Copyright reform (protection and monetization of copyrighted works distributed over the Internet, while protecting freedom of expression and freedom of the arts). Copyright and Artificial Intelligence.
• Internet and digital platforms regulation. The Digital Services Act, a comprehensive regulatory framework on content moderation and protection of citizens’ rights online, including from disinformation.
• The Media Freedom Act, a brand new law enhancing media freedom, pluralism and journalists protection across the EU.
• The regulation of artificial intelligence in the EU (the AI Act).

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course provides students with the opportunity to develop a critical knowledge of European integration with particular attention to the most recent crises, related to finance, immigration, and the violations of the rule of law. At the end of the course, students have acquired: a) wide perspective on the intersection of political, legal, historical, and economic factors in the management of the crises; b) skills useful for the identification of the legal and political factors influencing European integration; c) fundamental techniques of reading and understanding of European, constitutional, and legal sources of law; d) skills of analysis of European and domestic case law; e) critical skills for the comparative analysis of historical, legal, and political factors of integration processes. 

By the end of the course, the student: knows the processes and techniques related to the creation, writing, production, packaging, and distribution of film and tv products; knows how to place film and tv production within the broader context of the creation of contents for media and cultural industries; is able to contribute autonomously to the creation of an audiovisual product. The course provides comprehensive training on the world of audiovisuals and the main audiovisual production techniques, both in relation to the different media and to the possible destinations of the product. Tools are provided both from a practical point of view, for the creation of crossmedia and transmedia content, and analytical, for the use and understanding of the basic elements of audiovisual language in a transmedia key. In parallel with the more theoretical introduction, with the help of the teacher, ample space is dedicated to the practical dimension of the laboratory. With the request to design some products of a transmedia nature, collectively or individually, which is analyzed with the teacher and constitutes material for the exam. The following topics are addressed during the course: 
• transmedia approach to entertainment
• design and production of transmedia products
• transmedia storytelling
• storyworld
• transmedia architectures
• analysis of particularly significant cases in transmedia production

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course is open to students coming from different faculties and curricula. Students may attend this course after completion of the previous first level and familiarization with Arabic sounds and script. The second level course focuses on spoken Levantine Arabic, Beirut variety. Students become better acquainted with spoken Arabic and culture-specific topics and concepts, focusing on possible fields for intercultural negotiation, while keeping in tact culture specificities and differences.

This course addresses:
-Spoken Language: additional study of the Levantine variety (Beirut); twin formulae from the Egyptian variety (Cairo) for introducing oneself and greetings.

-Chunks, collocations, and formulae: additional collocations and chunks, considered useful for the diplomatic-administrative sphere; isolated lexicon and elementary but culturally significant formulae are presented. At this stage, students are invited to simply memorize a number chunks-collocations-formulae.

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 has learned modern methods to design electronic circuits for analog and digital signals coming from experimental apparata. Students also acquire knowledge of the technological processes that are the basis of digital integrated circuits. In particular, in the laboratory session students are able to design circuits with analog components and discrete programmable digital circuits (FPGA) and verify their operation. Also, the student will possess the knowledge to design relatively complex electronic circuits for high-speed data acquisition systems. The student will finally participate to specific laboratory sessions dedicated to FPGA implementations of digital architectures and signal transmissions via high-speed electro/optical lines. The course is divided into two modules. The first module is primarily geared towards analog electronics focused on high frequency amplifiers and circuits. The second module is focused primarily on frontier FPGA implementations. Digital high frequencies, synchronization, and reading processes are covered. Each student is shown some laboratory experiences. The laboratory session consists of a series of analog and circuits demos that are shown in the classroom. Particular emphasis is paid to the digital programming pf commercial FPGAs (Xilinx families). Mini-Tesla coil is studied, simulated, and shown in a lab session.

Political Philosophy is conceived as the application of philosophical investigation to politics and thus as a study of the contribution that philosophy may give to political practice. This implies both a clarification of the terms used in our everyday political vocabulary and an attempt at designing models of a just society. The course provides students with the following abilities: a) notions on methodology in historical investigation; b) ability to analytically read a text while at the same time situating it into the historical and linguistic context of the age; c) knowledge of the perennial tasks of political philosophy; d) an examination of a specific topic: the origins of democracy. The course is divided into two modules: 1. Relativism and its Discontents: this module examines the sophist Protagoras, the first coherent relativist, who argued that "man is the measure of all things", and the answers to his relativism elaborated by Plato and Aristotle; and how 20th century philosophers revived those positions, specifically investigating Richard Rorty, Leo Strauss, and Alasdair MacIntyre. The first class is devoted to a clarification of the notion of 'political philosophy' and to an account of the methodology in the history of political thought. 2. The just society: unending quest: this module is devoted to the search for a just society, reading John Rawls, the author who put back the notion of justice at the center of political philosophy and who wrote the milestone treatment on the subject in the 20th century.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. By the end of the seminar the student is able to read and discuss scientific essays in comparative politics and history and is able to interact appropriately in a seminar situation. The Seminar consists of participation in a series of lectures given in English by the lecturer and visiting professors on the main topics of European history, politics, and culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Seminar introduces students to international research. By the end of the workshop, students will have improved their ability to discuss research topics, to explore the topics studied in depth using international literature as well as to conduct small comparative literature searches and to translate this knowledge into a short paper written using word processing systems. Part of the lectures are given by historians and political scientists mainly coming from foreign universities such as university of Trier, Sciences Po Lyon, Berlin Humboldt, Potsdam, and Dresden. The lecturer coordinating the seminar explains to the students how to write the paper according to a historical 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. At the end of the course, the student knows and can apply formal, ontological, and computational methods to deal with the semiotic interpretation of multimodal data and content. The interpretations considered concern different ontological levels. A 4E (embodied, enactive, embedded, extended) approach is assumed. This course covers interdisciplinary research across semiotics, ontology, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. By the end of the course, students will have acquired a solid understanding of key aspects of Italy's cultural heritage, as well as a deeper appreciation of the complexities of its history and society. They are equipped to independently develop advanced knowledge and specialized skills, applying these to the analysis of cultural and institutional phenomena that define Italian culture and society. This course offers an overview of key moments in 20th-century Italian history, aiming to develop both linguistic and intercultural skills through the analysis of texts, guided activities, and group discussions. Topics covered include war, dictatorship, post-war reconstruction, and the profound cultural and social changes of the second half of the century. Special attention is given to comparing Italian historical processes with those experienced in the students’ countries of origin, fostering a broader and shared understanding of the complex dynamics of the 20th century.

The course is divided into five thematic modules, each focusing on a significant historical moment:

1. World War I, exploring how war vocabulary and narrative structures reflect the experience of conflict.
2. Fascism and political language, analyzing the rhetoric and discourse of the regime.
3. World War II and the Resistance, with a focus on the vocabulary of freedom and clandestinity.
4. The birth of the Republic, examining institutional language.
5. The 1968 movements and the feminist revolution, exploring the language of protest and civil rights.

Classes are conducted in Italian and include interactive activities, language exercises, written production, and intercultural exchange. Audiovisual materials are used to stimulate reflection and enrich the historical and linguistic context.