University of Bologna

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is intended for students who have a strong background in political science. The course focuses on political communication with emphasis on the relationship between political systems and media systems, political language, political marketing, new media and politics, and media and populism. Special attention is placed on the strategies of effective political communication used in political campaigns both in Europe and the U.S. and the role of mass media in the public sphere and its effects on public opinion. The course also an analysis of the principal forms of online political communication. Required readings include: COMUNICAZIONE POLITICA: LE NUOVE FRONTIERE by D. Campus, MEDIATIZATION OF POLITICS: A CHALLENGE FOR DEMOCRACY? By G. Mazzoleni and W. Schultz. The course includes lectures and a series of guest speakers. Assessment is based on a written exam that includes multiple choice and essay questions.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. The student acquires historical and literary knowledge of women's popular culture with specific reference to travel literature and critical utopias, within a gender perspective. The course analyzes the strategies of representation of female identity, women's social role and agency in women's travel accounts such as letters, diaries and novels, from the 18th century to the present. It also investigates the double diversity of women travelers as different both from male travelers and from more socially conformist women. The course also explores to what extent these texts subvert or reinforce the position of women within the patriarchal social order and in the domestic sphere. For this reason, the texts chosen for the course are examined within their original cultural and social contexts, and in their interconnection with class, race, and gender discrimination.

Please note that there are different sections of this course at UNIBO, both at the LM and LT levels. The LM sections require special permission as they are part of the Laurea Magistrale in Direzione aziendale degree.This description applies to the LM course with Prof. Bolatto. This course analyzes the regulatory framework for trade and the regulatory issues relating to international markets and regional markets, such as U.S. and EU markets, and emerging markets in Africa and Asia. Topics include Institutional structures (GATT/WTO, NAFTA, EU, APEC, SADEC, CEDEAO) and Regulatory authorities; International dimensions of market regulation (tariffs and customs regulations, product safety and environmental restrictions, trademark and patent regulations); and settlement of disputes. The course discusses topics including multinational firms and foreign direct investments, global value chains, firm strategies in global value chains, and international princes and exchange rates.

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 procedures and methods for modelling, identifying, designing, and analyzing dynamic motorcycle models. Topics include analytical tools to understand the basic mechanical systems, numerical tools to simulate complex mechanical systems, and experimental tools to identify critical parameters. The course discusses topics including motorcycle kinematics, suspensions, tire modelling, motorcycle dynamics, numerical modelling of the motorcycle dynamics, and experimental tests and model validation. The course consists of theoretical lectures, lectures and seminars held by experts from academic and industry, and classroom exercises with numerical tools and simulation software.

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, the student has a working knowledge of the basic tools and results of the classical microeconomic theory for perfectly competitive environments. In particular, the class focuses on: classical consumer theory: utility maximization and expenditure minimization; choice under uncertainty and insurance decisions; production theory, profit maximization, and cost functions; welfare analysis of perfectly competitive markets. Specific Topics covered: consumer behavior, consumer choice and demand; preference relations, rationality, and utility functions; the budget set; demand functions; indirect utility; utility maximization, expenditure minimization, and duality; individual and aggregated demand functions; welfare evaluation of economic changes; choice under uncertainty; expected utility theory; risk aversion and risk premium; the insurance decision; risk spreading, risk pooling, and diversification; production sets; profit maximization, cost minimization, and duality; aggregation; efficient production; partial equilibrium analysis; Pareto optimality and competitive equilibria; the fundamental welfare theorems in partial equilibrium; welfare analysis in partial equilibrium; pure exchange; Pareto optimality in general equilibrium; general economic equilibrium with production; the fundamental welfare theorems in general equilibrium.

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. The course focuses on the genesis, development, and evolution of sociology of education. Emphasis is placed on the sociological contribution to the study of institutions and educational processes in the field of education. Special attention is placed on specific knowledge/sociological skills functional to the assessment of the impact of educational interventions in reference to equality and inequality of opportunities in education. A separate section of the course is devoted to how to read and evaluate statistical-sociological data and indicators used in analyzing data pertaining to school systems. The course is divided in two portions. The first portion of the course focuses on the analytical models of educational processes and institutions and on the transition from a school centric to a polycentric model of training. Starting from the definition of the field of study and research in sociology of education and the contributions of various authors (Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Parsons, Simmel, etc.) the following topics are addressed: the relationship between education and society, socialization and theoretical models of reference, social self and theories of identity, equality of opportunities in education, and actors and agencies. The second portion of the course deals with specific issues such as inequalities in education and educational pathways for students who do not have Italian citizenship. The course includes traditional lectures, seminar activities, and in class discussions, as well as PPT presentations, slides, and videos. Assessment is based on a final written exam with essay questions and an oral exam on course materials during which students can discuss an essay on a pre-approved topic related to course materials.

The course focuses on the ancient history of the Emilia Romagna region through the direct analysis of various sources: literary, epigraphic, and archaeological. Students are introduced to research methodology regarding the study of the ancient world, in particular institutions, society, and culture. The course offers a general outline of Augustus' VIII region, starting from the Roman conquest of the Po valley. Various aspects of the Romanization process in the Cispadana region are covered (social, economic, religious, institutional) based on different types of data. Different methodological examples are used in the analysis of general historical value. The last section of the course focuses on the most recent archaeological discoveries concerning the ancient town of Mutina (Modena). The course includes visits to Emilia Romagna regional Museums (Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna, the Antiquarium di Marzabotto, and the Museo Archeologico di Ferrara). Assessment is based on a final oral exam covering class materials, general knowledge, and the fundamentals of research methodology. Main topics are: the different types of sources available in the reconstruction of the ancient history of a specific geographic area and their correct methodological use in the historical reconstruction process; the political and economic history of the Emilia Romagna region; basic history of a number of Roman colonies including Ariminum, Bononia, Mutina, and Parma; the most recent archaeological discoveries and their relationship to previous knowledge.

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 analyzes the way the western media covers the developing world and the humanitarian emergencies. Specifically the course explores the emerging and historical humanitarian narratives, with particular reference to the way in which the activities of NGOs are reported; how we understand and explain faraway disasters; how the media representations of suffering and violence has changed in the post-cold war period and in the digital era; the relationship between media, aid, corporate communication, and branding; and the relationship between power, media, and migration. This course encourages students to think sociologically about a range of issues and “social problems” related to the different ways in which media is used to report on humanitarian situations, and what impact this has. It also serves as an introduction to some important themes and issues within humanitarianism and migration. Areas under study include: the construction of “social problems,” media, ethics, human rights, disaster relief, war, famine, refugee camps, social movements, and NGOs.  A special focus is dedicated to the mediated performances that contribute to create the spectacle of the humanitarian border, which is physically and symbolically enacted by the different actors involved in contemporary management of migration. Moving from the assumption that our awareness of nearly all humanitarian issues is defined by the media, this course looks at the literature associated with humanitarian organizations and the NGO narratives, tracing the imagined and real encounters between solidarity, participation, and citizenship in the context of larger social processes of mediation and globalization. Examining humanitarian communication through various forms of aesthetic activism - documentary, photojournalism, benefit concerts, celebrities, and live blogging, the course explores how the circulation of humanitarian images and narratives impact the peoples it aims to serve, and what can be learned about global inequality from the stories associated with it. The course also focuses on how several news media framed Covid-19 as an invisible enemy, using metaphor of war to describe the current situation. The definition of the emergency as a war conducts inevitably to the identification of an enemy. The hyper-visibility of the war against this invisible enemy leads to a generalized fear of ‘the others’ and to the identification of this invisibility in visible bodies. Finally, the course reflects on long-term implications of the pandemic on mobility justice and what Mbembe (2020) has defined the “right to breath.” There are two versions of this course; this course, UCEAP Course Number 169B and Bologna course number 75073, is associated with the LM in Sociology and Social Work and LM in Local and Global Development degree programmes. The other version, UCEAP Course Number 169A and Bologna course number 81782, is associated with the LM in Language, Society and Communication degree programme.

The course is part of the Laurea Magistrale Program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by consent of the instructor. The course offers a series of advanced analytical tools necessary to understand European economic development as well as economic policies related to EU integration and expansion, their political and economic prerequisites, and their impact on member states. The course focuses on models of political economy, institutional economics, and economic analysis in order to critically evaluate the process of economic integration in Europe in the trade, monetary, and financial areas. The course explores the economic integration of the European Union (EU) and its role in the global economy. Attention is placed on basic concepts and theory in order to understand the economic dynamics between EU member states as well as between the EU and the rest of the world. A special section of the course is devoted to evaluating current events and the debate on Europe’s economic future against the backdrop of changing dynamics in global markets.

The course deals with basic themes, concepts, and thinkers in international relations. The purpose is to provide students with essential conceptual and linguistic tools for understanding the underlying structure and fundamental features of international politics, as well as its material and immaterial changing aspects. The objective is to explain the dynamics through which men and women understand international politics as well as to achieve a coherent capacity to think about international life, both in its theoretical and practical dimension. The course covers seven specific topics: The first part of the course is dedicated to theory: international relations as a field of western knowledge; a fundamental theoretical framework: realism/idealism; war and ways of peace; beyond domestic analogy; justice and order in world politics The second part is dedicated to practice with the analysis of specific cases: the international political space; homogeneity, heterogeneity, and conflict; the global age and international relations.