UC Center, Rome

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.

This course examines and unpicks the memory of Fascism and the Holocaust from the Italian perspective. Through a combination of class lectures and discussions, film screenings and readings, and site visits, students connect decisions taken in Fascist Italy with the end result of forced labor and mechanized killing that occurred principally outside of the country’s borders. The course explores pre-Fascist and Fascist Italy’s relationship with its Jewish population, the repressive nature of the dictatorship, its involvement in the Second World War, and its alliance with Nazi Germany to gain a thorough grounding how scholars have sought to explain Italy’s Holocaust. Having established the history of the Jews in Italy and the processes and practicalities by which they were rounded-up and deported from occupied Italy, the course reflects upon debates surrounding guilt and how this has been used to excuse or deflect responsibility for the deportation and murder of religious and political prisoners. The memory, or otherwise, of the Holocaust in Italy has been heavily influenced by domestic identities, politics, and culture and the course examines this through film. As arguably the most important artistic medium of modernity, cinema allows one to construct and deconstruct many myths and identities. This course analyzes some of the most relevant Italian film productions relating to the memory of Fascism and the Holocaust in Italy, primarily as socio-historical documents. Instruction consists of a series of lectures and class debates around assigned readings and film analysis.

This course goes beyond the fundamentals of public relations emphasizing the concepts, theories, and techniques relevant to the Italian practice. The course explores three key areas of public relations: first, communication: its models, their evolution and what happens in Italy; second, cross-cultural perspectives/realities of communication media, public relations, and mass media; and third, marketing and advertising approaches, news writing, press releases, and social media management of Italian companies. The course presents a cross-cultural perspective and focuses on European and Italian attitude toward public relations, providing evidences and a hands-on experience. An additional concentration is on the business aspect of the label, in particular, on marketing, branding, and consumer behavior seen from both Italian and international perspective. Business case studies and site visits are part of the course. The course includes topics such as evolution of communications models and techniques, public relations, social media, communications and public opinion, ethics, organizational structures, tactics and strategies, employee relations, media relations, government relations, and public relations research.

This course explores social and political issues concerning the city of Rome. It provides background on the role of the city in the unification of Italy, and then focuses chiefly on the period following the Second World War. Topics include the image of Rome in popular culture, the modern evolution of the city as a physical entity, the migration of southerners to the city, the dynamics of family, and the role of gender. Soccer is examined with particular reference to citizen participation. Local criminality is put in a national context. Other topics include the church, the education system, and government. Final consideration is given to Rome as a European capital city. Throughout the course, attention is paid to relevant administrative issues and social contexts in an attempt to gain a vision of Rome as seen in Italian and European perspectives.

Recently, in the decades since the 1970s, millions of people from many countries and religions have flooded into Italy, sparking a profound change in the social fabric of the once homogenous Italian peninsula. This course reviews the key teachings and beliefs of several world religions present in Rome, and introduces undergraduate students to the principles and practices of “interfaith dialogue,” using local dialogue case studies and site visits to give context to our discussions. Students grapple with the complex nature of religious and social diversity in the Eternal City, and the concrete steps many inhabitants of Rome are taking to bridge social divides. Inspired by Enzo Pace, students learn to “deal with the unprecedented religious pluralism that has been increasingly characterizing life in Italy.”

This course goes beyond the fundamentals of marketing emphasizing the concepts, theories, and techniques applied to the “Made in Italy” phenomenon, emblematic of superlative quality. The course explores three key areas: 1) Basis of communication, public relations, and marketing; 2) “Made in Italy”: concept, its evolution and what means for Italy from economic and social point of view; and 3) marketing and advertising approaches of Italian companies pursuing “Made in Italy”. A focus is on the industries of food and cuisine, fashion, and other areas of design. The course explores the appeal of “Made in Italy” as a global brand and the marketing of “Italian Style” throughout the world. Since a flow of expertise across time and disciplines seems to distinguish “Made in Italy,” the course aims to give a way to connect the latter to patterns of continuity and change in Italian society and to examine how the "Made in Italy" phenomenon has impacted the country. An additional concentration is on the business aspect of the label, in particular, on marketing, branding, and consumer behavior seen from both an Italian and international perspective.

This course provides students with a sound basis for communicating effectively and accurately in oral and written Italian. 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 students with a sound basis for communicating effectively and accurately in oral and written Italian. Students practice recognizing and using more complex Italian grammatical and syntactic structures such as the present and past conditional and present subjunctive verbs. 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.

The millennium following the collapse of the Roman Empire saw the development in Europe of a radically new form of civilization now called "medieval." With its nuns and monks, knights and nobles, troubadours and artists, plagues and famines, crusades and cathedrals, and cities and castles, the Middle Ages left an indelible mark on the western world. Rome, the city of the Popes, played a key role in medieval western civilization and was the center of a long-lasting tradition of pilgrimage to the apostles' and martyrs' relics preserved in its many churches. This course is intended as a broad survey of medieval culture and history with a specific emphasis on Rome. The course takes advantage of the city's abundance of medieval monuments and works of art: mosaics and paintings, sculptures, and religious architecture, which are analyzed in comparison to the artistic production of the rest of Europe, the Byzantine East, and other cultural contexts such as the Islamic world. The reading of relevant historical and literary texts completes the course.