History

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program in History and Oriental Studies. The course is intended for advanced levels students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on neoliberal political economy and its social impacts on local contexts. Emphasis is placed on a critical approach to the aid industry as a key issue for understanding global governance processes. Students create a research project and bibliography autonomously on a topic related to the course. Since the end of the cold war and the triumph of a neoliberal order, Africa has faced a huge number of conflicts and devastating social effects. Starting with the analysis of selected ethnographic cases (Congo, Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leon, etc.), the first part of the course explores the etiology of contemporary African wars focusing on the link between local violence and global economic and political processes. Special attention is placed on the relationship between youth and war and the social imaginary. The course explores topics including neoliberalism and inequality, the African State, globalization in Africa, African conflicts, war economy, young people and children in Africa, witchcraft in contemporary Africa, and development enterprise. The course includes traditional lectures and group discussions. The instructor focuses on the general topics in order to introduce the various scholarly debates. Specific examples are discussed in order to give a concrete idea of the different topics. Students are encouraged to work autonomously, comment, and ask questions. The course includes visual resources (i.e. documentaries, maps and photos).

This course examines the tumultuous period of history known as the Viking Age (793 – 1066) from Vínland in the West to the Caspian Sea in the East. It traces the stories of Viking raiders and settlers in Christian Europe, the Islamic Caliphate, and the New World by interrogating a number of English-translated sources, including the Old Icelandic sagas, the writings of Latin chroniclers and Arabic geographers, and art and material culture. The course investigates what it meant to be a Viking; whether it was a lifestyle or an ethnic identity; whether Vikings were bloodthirsty marauders, well-armed businessmen, or hipsters with a snazzy sense of style, as they appear in some modern reconstructions; and how the people who spread across the islands of the North Atlantic lived in their daily lives. Finally, the course examines the enduring attraction and impact of the three centuries of chaos and expansion that emanated from Scandinavia during the Viking Age.

The so-called period of “Enlightenment” in European history provided a wide range of debates that continues to provoke critical engagements in the following centuries. This course provides a comprehensive introduction to one of the most profound questions in Enlightenment debates, a question that is still seen by many as highly relevant to today's social and political theory, as well as moral and legal philosophy; that is, what constitutes a just society? The course covers texts constituting the “canon” in Enlightenment social and political thought, and will end with a brief reflection on how such debates might still preoccupy some of our own understandings of the nature of politics and sociability.