Geography

The course examines key biogeographical and ecological topics from both physical and human perspectives. This interdisciplinary approach is essential for the understanding and management of environmental problems that involve biological diversity and ecological communities. The course provides students not just with an essential grounding in the fundamentals of biogeography and ecology, but also an appreciation of how this is mediated by society. These skills are valuable for both physical and human geographers and are a central facet of environmental geography.  Most specifically, the course focuses on biodiversity, ecological systems, and ecosystem services with a focus on current threats, management, and conservation. 

This course introduces students to the intersection of urban geography and the geography of globalization, with the aim of understanding key references in academic debates, and their relevance for real-world social, economic, and political issues in our cities today. The course offers a critical, human-geographical perspective on "global cities," how these manifest in different parts of the world, how they matter for distinct realms of urban life, and how we can study features of global urban geography. Themes include empires, development, and cities; global cities; "Third World cities" or "cities of the global South"; urban spaces of neoliberalism; new geographies of urban theory; and planetary urbanization. Students examine cases related to migration, sexual minorities, the circulation of ideas, and gentrification. Examples come from both the "global North" and the "global South," with the aim of helping students understand when and how these categories may be useful.

This course explores forms and modes of adaptation of landform shaping processes to bioclimatic conditions: morphogenetic systems and morphoclimatic domains. Topics include: direct and indirect influence of climatic conditions on landform shaping; morphoclimatic organization of the Earth's surface; cold, xeric, tropical, and temperate morphoclimatic zones.

What can individual citizens contribute to making cities greener and more ecological? Will a concept of a climate‐friendly and healthy city grow over this ‐ in the truest sense of the word? And how specifically can urban and private areas be gardened? What are private and municipal strategies for dealing with urban gardens and their implementation? What are the costs to cities of private urban gardening? Which horticultural and which structural engineering aspects have to be considered? Which psychological and healthy effects does a green city have on its inhabitants? What kind of biodiversity exists in green cities? These questions form the thematic framework of this course. The questions are dealt with and answered within an interdisciplinary framework.

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.

The course enables students to develop an understanding of contemporary dimensions of citizenship as a way of thinking through how these shape and are shaped by cities.  This understanding includes an awareness of the different kinds of primary, secondary, and gray sources available for the study of cities and citizenship. The course uses case studies from the global North and South to explore the political, economic, social, and cultural processes that shape cities and citizenship as connected sites of people's sense of identity and belonging.