UC Center, Rome

This course explores love and sexuality in Italian culture from circa 1350 to 1650. From the verses of Petrarch, to the writings of Ficino, Leone Ebreo, Aretino, and poems by Marino, love and sexuality were theorized and represented in the treatises, poetry, paintings, and sculptures of this period. Mainly on-site in the churches, palaces, and museums of Rome, this course considers the poetic, social, and visual aspects of the topic in an interdisciplinary study that examines both word and image. The course begins with Michelangelo's SISTINE CEILING and its reflection on the fall of Adam and Eve with their subsequent awareness of their sexuality. Following Leo Steinberg's theory about the sexuality of Christ, students explore the theology of nudity in Christian art as well as the “amor dei” (love for God) or mystic marriage through Baroque sculptures such as Bernini's SAINTS IN ECSTASY. The second part of the course focuses on the more secular, sensuous, and even lascivious aspects by considering the revival of ancient classical culture. Central to this evolution is the METAMORPHOSES by Ovid and the themes deriving from the many commentaries on it such as, unrequited love through Bernini's APOLLO AND DAPHNE, rape though Bernini's ABDUCTION OF PERSEPHONE, and love for the self through Caravaggio's NARCISSUS. The course concludes with exploring socio-historical, gendered topics such as marriage, courtesans, male virility, female chastity, homosexuality, androgyny, and hermaphroditism through a variety of art objects.

This course provides students with a sound basis for communicating effectively and accurately in oral and written Italian. In this course, students practice recognizing and using complex Italian grammatical and syntactic structures, such as verbs in all tenses and moods, connective words, and all uses of the subjunctive mood in hypothetical sentences, conjunctions, or indirect speech. 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.

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 reveals 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 long-term 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.

Slow Food is a movement whose philosophy is defined by three interconnected principles: good, clean, fair - where “slower/better” is promoted over “faster/cheaper.” This course examines how Slow Food started initially as a protest against McDonalds opening in Rome to igniting a global revolution in such diverse sectors as tourism, education, and city planning. The course studies how Slow Food governance advocates ecological and political awareness, equitable food policy, and sustainable practices that are not only good for the planet, but as the commercial success of Eataly has demonstrated, business as well. Through case studies such as Eataly, but also visits to local farms and interviews with local producers and distributers, the course examines how Slow Food philosophy intersects with business practices. This course aims to assess what happens when the tenets of sustainability, responsibility, and sharing are combined with the value proposition to provide a unique cultural experience that exports the Italian way of life on a global scale. What is the bottom line: has tradition met innovation, or exploitation? 

This course is designed as a comprehensive survey course of theory and research in social psychology. The goal is to explain how human thoughts, feelings, and behavior are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other people and cultural background. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to critically think about how research in social psychology can shed light on events going on around the world and in their own lives and how it can help to better human existence. The main topics include: the self; social perception; social cognition and information processing; attitudes and persuasion; conforming; prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination; social influence and group behavior, and romantic, aggressive, and helping behavior; and applied social psychology.
 

This course examines the role of sport (with an emphasis on soccer and cycling) in Italian society from historical and contemporary perspectives. It considers the relationship between sports and such issues as gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nationalism, nation-building, the Italian economy, and the role of the media in order to determine how developments in sports have influenced, and have been influenced by, Italian politics and society. The course explores sport in Italy from 1860 to the present.

To what extent do stereotypes and prejudices affect the way we read and interpret news? How is wrong or inaccurate information conveyed, and how can we detect and contrast it? Is fake news a novelty of our time? This course examines the characteristics of the contemporary Italian media landscape in the light of some specific cultural traits of the country: attachment to family, distrust of institutional power, the influence (now in decline) of the Catholic Church, and the low propensity to read books and newspapers. The course analyzes historical moments where information, disinformation, and counter-information are closely intertwined, including the rumors after the fire of Rome under Nero; the anonymous epigrams of Pasquino and other "talking statues" in the 16th century as a reaction to papal censorship; the cause célèbre around a child, Edgardo Mortara, stolen in the mid-19th century from his Jewish family by the papal state; and will include moments from the last decades. The topics covered include the era of "Hollywood on the Tiber"; the media coverage of two cases between Italy and the US; the Islamophobia phenomenon; the long silence on the Italian colonial past finally broken thanks to Black Lives Matter protests; the controversies on vaccines; and the memes and the conspiracy theories related to the pandemic. Students research, discuss, and edit and produce texts, images, and audio and video materials on each topic within a simulated newsroom.

This course considers the unique aspects of Italian media and how it impacts and influences everything from cultural heritage to politics. Students explore Italy's eccentric media characters, from right-wing Matteo Salvini and chauvinistic Silvio Berlusconi to the tweeting, headline-making Pope, and consider how seriously Italians take what they get from the press. This course explores the historical development of Italian media from the "Acta Diurna" bulletins sent from the Roman Forum through phases of Fascism and national terrorism, all the way to the digital age. Students play documentarian by following the media treatment of an Italian news topic of their choice, ranging from culture, fashion, or food to gay rights, climate change, politics, or the economy, in order to fully understand how the media shapes public perception and vice versa. Topics include the media treatment of the Vatican, the Mafia, gender issues and sexism, fashion, food, cultural heritage, and the economy. Students also consider how Italy stacks up against media in the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of press freedom, transparency, and infotainment (the melding of news and entertainment).

As immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees move within and across Italian urban borders, they impact the familiar and the "rigid orders of the self"- to borrow the words of the German novelist Günter Grass. This course examines the fundamental links between immigration across the Mediterranean Basin with globalization, development, climate change, poverty, and present-day domestic politics. Considering the latest Italian elections, this course also analyzes how immigration incites everyday an array of responses in different contexts and forms. From the Vatican to the government, sometimes those responses are even antithetical, but they always meet in that discursive space where concepts like home, identity, subjectivity, and citizenship unravel. These concepts are shaped by various structures of power and are continuously migrating from earlier patterns and processes. This course ultimately aims at revealing them as a subject of both public concern on the one hand and violence for many migrants on the other.

Italy possesses one of the richest culinary traditions in the world, with roots reaching back to ancient times. Students explore literature detailing matters of Italian food culture in a dense array of settings. Part of the course is conducted on site, exposing students to Rome's rich network of food distribution systems, as well as touring areas in proximity of Rome to discover the close linkage between the territory, its inhabitants, and consumable food products. Topics covered include the cultural ecology of pasta, the historical evolution of spices, the special character of Alpine ecosystems, the moral implications of food consumption, modern food distribution, the globalization of taste, and responses to globalization especially through the Slow Food movement. Throughout the course attention is paid to the role of food practice in contemporary Italian society and culture, with special attention to gender. In order to put principles into practice, the structured experience of food and wines is an integral part of the course.