University of Bologna

This is an advanced 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. There are three versions of this course; this course, “GEOGRAPHIES OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES,” UCEAP Course Number 177A and Bologna course number 81952, is associated with the LM in History and Oriental Studies degree programme. One of the other versions, “GEOGRAPHY OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES,” UCEAP Course Number 177B and Bologna course number 95931, is associated with the LM in Local and Global Development degree programme. The final version “GEOGRAPHY OF DEVELOPMENT,” UCEAP Course Number 176 and Bologna course number 19695, is associated with the LM in Local and Global Development degree programme.
Climate change offers the opportunity for a multidisciplinary analysis. The course discusses various aspects of the topic through a primarily geographical approach. The course is structured into three parts. Part one introduces climate change as a global phenomenon, with its natural and anthropogenic root causes. Students discuss and reflect on the socio-spatial inequalities inherent in the climate crisis. Part two analyzes climate governance, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Post Kyoto adaptation and mitigation strategies. In addition to the policy-making process, the course critically examines theoretical frameworks of adaptation, notions of climate justice, and intersectional approaches to addressing the climate crisis and its colonial roots. Part three concerns climate change and mobility. The course examines the complex interconnections between climate change and (im)mobility. Empirical examples are drawn from the #ClimateOfChange [https://climateofchange.info/publications-press/] interdisciplinary research project to contextualize the climate crisis as it is manifested, resisted, and understood from diverse locations across the globe. At the end of the course students show understanding of some of the global challenges the population of the planet has been facing since the second half of the twentieth century. Among these, the critical relation with the natural resources and with the concept of development and, above all, climate change, with its connections to territorial development, ecological risk, food security, and the consumption of natural resources. At the end of the course, the students have acquired the theoretical and empirical tools to critically analyze the global strategies of climate resilience and cooperation and the relation between climate change and tourism.

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 is designed to explore the frontiers of interaction between politics and markets. It addresses the factors underlying cross national variation in economic performance and income inequality by investigating the ways in which the international economy affects state autonomy, the welfare state and the politics of income redistribution. The course is structured around two key questions: to what extent do differences in institutional settings shape fundamentally different models of democratic capitalism; what is the role of institutions, firms and labor unions in determining the different arrangements in capitalist countries. This course examines cross-national evolution and variation in welfare states in industrialized countries and especially in Europe. Topics covered include: a comparison of the political economy of welfare states; differences in welfare state models; the extent to which differences in institutional settings, coalition politics, and economics shape fundamentally different models of welfare states. The methodology is comparative with a focus on theoretical models.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. There are two versions of this course; this course, UCEAP Course Number 180A and Bologna course number 81779, is associated with the LM in Language, Society, and Communication degree program. The other version, UCEAP Course Number 180B and Bologna course number 75074, is associated with the LM in Sociology and Social Work degree program.
By the end of this course, students are able to distinguish and analyze the different notions of globalization, and how information technologies affect everyday life, markets, and the process of consumption. In particular, the student is able to: develop an understanding of globalization through a sociological lens; understand the culture of the Internet and the relationship between globalization and web society; analyze the impact on individual behaviors and society at large within Social Networks & Online Communities through the mainstreaming of private information posted to the public sphere; frame the emergence of a new rhetoric of democratization and participation in the web society; understand the changing relationship between producers, consumers, and prosumers in the web society; recognize consequences and effects of the Digital Divide nationally and worldwide.

This course is organized around four interconnected thematic modules that explore the tensions, contradictions, and transformative potential of the digital age within a globalized context. Rather than merely offering a chronological or technical overview, the course engages students in a critical reflection on how digital technologies are reshaping contemporary society—bringing new opportunities for participation and innovation, but also exacerbating inequalities, eroding privacy, and consolidating new forms of control.

Module 1 – Globalization: Histories, Theories, and Social Transformations

Module 2 – Digital Society and Media: Platformization and the Reconfiguration of Social Life

Module 3 – Production, Consumption, and Prosumption in the Digital Economy

Module 4 – Digital Divides and Global Inequalities

This course examines the literary history of the period at stake, and discusses literary tools to analyze fictional productions and question them in relation to the complex and heterogeneous North American realities. The course topic varies each year, review the course information in the University of Bologna course catalog for the topic for a specific term.

This course is part of the LM degree and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course consists of lectures and visits and is divided into two parts. Part one provides an overview of the history of art, mainly Italian, from the end of the fifteenth century (High Renaissance) to the beginning of the nineteenth century. It focuses on artists, movements, and main topics, particularly seen from the point of view of the revival of antiquity; and at the same time provides the tools for understanding and analyzing the works of art, studying them within their cultural, social, and political context, and in their style, iconography, and technique. Part two deals with the spiritual “infrastructure” and visual network created in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries in Italy by the Benedictine Cassinese Congregation (1419 – 1570 ca).

The course deals with the wide theme of the skills necessary to form citizens who are able to face the challenges of contemporary life and to meet and interpret forms of citizenship that are much broader than national or European ones, including global ones: a citizenship, therefore, aware and active, oriented to the values of civil coexistence and the common good, to the relationship with the environment according to sustainable approaches. In this perspective, active citizenship education is linked to the concepts of empowerment, the recognition of one's own and others’ identity, autonomy, cooperation, the values of social solidarity and respect for the other, overcoming the discrimination of gender, to the possibilities of change. In particular, the course presents some fundamental concepts of citizenship education and active participation (identity, community, belonging, stereotypes/prejudges, etc.) and, starting from these, the course focuses on the role of the student and her/his active participation in civil society, school, and university contexts as a "training gym" to exercise her/his citizenship rights and duties.

The course discusses general knowledge of basic principles and concepts of Italian property law, contract law, and tort law. The course discusses topics including private law and its sources, personal rights, data protection, property and commons, contract law,  principle of freedom of contract VS nondiscrimination principle, consumer law, tort, civil law and common law, and pollution and compensation.

This course is part of the LM degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course discusses how a large set of data can be analyzed to derive strategic information and to address data-driven decisions. The course examines the main data-mining tasks such as data selection, data transformation, analysis, and interpretation, with specific reference to unstructured text data, and with the issues related to analysis in big data environments.

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 fundamental notions regarding the evolution of European and national legislation of Arts Law. In particular, they gain the fundamental knowledge regarding either the protection and the enhancement of cultural heritage and the promotion of cultural activities, but are also brought to analyze and discuss the challenge that the idea of Arts and Culture pose for any regulation, especially in a democratic system. As an essential part of this course, students also know how the digital technologies, as the last stage of evolution, have impacted on our legal systems, and have transformed and can foster all the above mentioned policies for Culture and Arts. The course is divided into three parts: Art & Law, Law & Digital Technologies, and Digitalizing Cultural Heritage.