University of Bologna

The course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. Through the critical review of classical theories of capitalism, students discuss both fixed and invariant elements in the development of modern capitalism and what makes peculiar its contemporary forms. Students examine some of the most important concepts in present intellectual and political debate, such as globalization, financialization, etc. The course begins with a historical and theoretical framing of the question regarding the peculiarity of contemporary capitalism, briefly considering some of the most influential classical approaches to the study of capitalism. The course subsequently focuses on more recent debates and examines several proposals to conceptually grasp the specific capitalist formation that began to take shape in the early 1970s. Such concepts as flexible accumulation and late capitalism, the knowledge economy and neoliberalism, cognitive and postcolonial capitalism, Empire and postfordism, "racial capitalism" and feminist critique of political economy are critically discussed. The course then focuses on the so-called "platform capitalism." Taking platforms both as emerging business model and as a political form the course investigates their origins in the intertwined domains of logistics and digitization. It then focuses on the operations of some of the most important platforms - from Uber to Amazon, from Deliveroo to Airbnb - and discusses their implications both for the transformation of urban spaces and for labor (introducing such notions as "algorithmic management" and "digital labor"). In general, platforms are taken both as a specific research object and as a lens that allows discerning wider tendencies in the development of contemporary capitalism.

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. This course discusses the main lines of development of English Literature and drama, in relation to European culture. The course topic changes each term. The fall 2021 topic focuses on the development of the myth of Hamlet, from its pre-Shakespearian Scandinavian origins, to earlier Elizabethan versions of the drama, to the three Shakespeare texts of HAMLET and beyond, to later adaptations, rewritings and film versions. Refer to the University of Bologna course catalog for the topic and description for the specific term this course is taken in.

The course focuses on twentieth century Italian literature. This course examines wide areas of twentieth-century literary history, with special emphasis on the relation between literature and historical, social, anthropological, and more broadly cultural phenomena. Study is assisted by secondary literature and face-to-face instruction and covers close reading of the text as well as problems of form, structure, composition, and reception. Specific course topics vary from year to year. There are three different sections of the course offered each year, taught by three different professors, each course with different topics, reading lists, and syllabi. UNIBO students are assigned to sections based on their last name: A-D, E-M, N-Z; however, UCEAP students are free to choose the section they prefer. Refer to the UNIBO website for the course description for each section.

This is a special studies course involving an internship with a corporate, public, governmental, or private organization, arranged with the Study Center Director or Liaison Officer. Specific internships vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. A substantial paper or series of reports is required. Units vary depending on the contact hours and method of assessment. The internship may be taken during one or more terms but the units cannot exceed a total of 12.0 for the year.

The course focuses on issues in applied ethics, the distinction between individual and public ethics, as well as the main debates in the field. Special attention is placed on the relationship between different approaches in moral philosophy (normative, virtue, and care ethics) and the multiple connections between moral reflection and cultural studies, political science, and humanities. Students are introduced to relevant literature in the field and the proper terminology in the field. The Spring 2022 topic is on Aristotle’s ethics, moral psychology, and, in particular, the physiology of moral development, the difference between natural and moral virtues, and the role of emotions in character formation.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course is based on the sociological analysis of a selection of films produced in Italy from the end of World War II to the ‘80s with the aim of using Italian movies as telescopes on the past and to reflect on the present of Italian culture, from both the historical and social point of view. At the end of the course, students have knowledge about: Italian cinema from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1980s; political and social transformations from the early 1900s to the 1980s; elements of Italian history from 1900 to post-war period; notions regarding sociological and anthropological models, necessary to interpret social transformations in Italy in the period under analysis. Some of the most important movies of Italian film history are screened such as 900, ROME OPEN CITY, LA DOLCE VITA, BREAD AND CHOCOLATE. This is a sociology course on Italian culture, in which movies are used as data as well as a stimulus for the debate. In addition, another level of analysis concerns the styles, the schools and the directors of the films selected, and the technical and social contexts that influence the different styles. In this light, students consider mass communication linguistic techniques (figures of speech, metaphors, analogies), to identify both clear and hidden messages in movies. The course includes traditional lectures, film screenings, and audiovisual materials.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students with adequate preparation. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course offers an overview of psycholinguistic research from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Special attention is placed on cognitive processes involved in language comprehension and production. The first part of the course deals with theoretical issues from a psycholinguistic point of view (i.e. development and origin of language, research methods, biological bases of language, and the system of language processing) and the study of language from the point of view of cognitive science. The second part of the course addresses issues related to research on language from an interdisciplinary perspective and the study of language as interactional practice (i.e. pragmatic and communicative aspects of language and language as joint activity). Required reading includes PSICOLOGIA DEL LINGUAGGIO by C. Cacciari, USING LANGUAGE by H.H. Clark. Exchange students who are more comfortable studying in English may substitute the Cacciari text with PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: INTRODUCTION AND APPLICATIONS by L. Menn. Assessment is based on a written exam (essay format) on course materials, readings and class discussions. Students may also be asked to elaborate on a possible experiment connected to one of the topics of the course.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the role of big data in modern life, as well as its uses as a tool for good or evil. The course highlights how big data can help us understand and explain social phenomena in a way that was unthinkable in previous generations. The course applies the R statistical computing environment to large-scale data sets, explores packages designed for use with big data (such as data.table and ff), and explores how parallelization can be used to analyze lots of data quickly. The course includes traditional lectures, a series of seminars, as well as visual material.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Courses in the LM in Business Administration degree program are typically not available to UCEAP exchange students. Enrollment in this course is by consent of the instructor. The course refers to the most important variables for international marketing and marketing mix investments in different markets. The course explores the following questions: what is the difference between managing a domestic market and a multinational portfolio of businesses; what are the methods to analyze foreign markets and consumers; what are success stories of international marketing strategies useful to companies that are internationalizing their business?