History

This course has two main objectives. The first is to provide introduction to some of the central themes and periods in economic history, ranging from the neolithic agricultural revolution in the Middle East to worldwide economic growth in the 20th and 21st centuries. The second is to introduce some of the main analytical debates in the field. The course provides a broad sense of the major epochs and revolutions in economic history, and demonstrates how economic theory and statistical evidence can help us to understand the real world. It also indicates some of the potential pitfalls, as well as advantages, of explaining the past through the lens of social science.

This is an independent research course with research arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific research topics vary each term and are described on a special project form for each student. A substantial paper is required. The number of units varies with the student’s project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student’s special study project form.

This course examines social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of Spain during the 20th century, contextualizing the historical evolution that took place and shaped Spanish society during that period. It starts with the crisis of 1898 and the consequences of defeat during the early 1900s on Spanish social transformation, the oligarchic monarchy of Alfonso XIII, from 1902 through 1914, and the parliamentary collapse from 1914 through 1923. The course also covers the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-30), the Second Spanish Republic (1931-36), and the cultural Silver Age of that ran from 1898 though 1936. It finally looks at the impact of the civil war (1936-39), the resulting Franco dictatorship (1939-75), and the restoration of democracy in Spain following Franco's death in 1975.

This course covers American historical and cultural developments from European colonization to the end of the 20th century. It studies both the internal developments in the United States and its growing importance in international politics. It offers a range of social, economic, and political perspectives on the American experience and develops students' understanding of the dominance of the United States in contemporary world history and culture. 

This course examines Pacific history from the Indigenous occupation of the Pacific to the late 1900s. It introduces the major narratives of the Pacific, using historical examples from all over the Pacific to highlight keys events and trends in Pacific history. It also focuses on the ways in which this history has been constructed and seeks to analyze Indigenous Pacific ways of telling history. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. This course provides theoretical knowledge on museum studies, as well as the necessary practical skills to work with or in the museum sector. It is designed to prepare students both to the responsibilities they will overtake or/and to the academic work they will produce during their professional career. The course is divided into three modules. The first module provides a theory-based introduction to the museum sector and the research field of critical museology. The second module is dedicated to the new stakes and challenges of the museum in the 21st century. The last part of the course is conceived to provide concrete tools to think specifically about the publics of museums, and to implement adapted strategies to relevantly interact with them inside and outside of the museum. The course covers museum history from being an institutional container for a collection up to the idea of the modern archaeological museum with its complex organization; the rudiments of museum theory, legislation, and marketing; the application of the theoretical-scientific concept of Museology, in its various meanings and multi-functional sense, to the complex problems related to public enjoyment of the Archaeological Cultural Heritage.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. The course focuses on the main theoretical and methodological tools of global and intercultural perspectives for the study of the medieval world including religious phenomena and dynamics. This course shows how to critically identify the socio-cultural matrix of religions, as well as connections, developments, persistence, and transformations of religious phenomena with a critical approach to periodization and can address and solve issues related to the management of cultural and religious pluralism. With a focus on the medieval Mediterranean and the routes to Asia from 1000 to 1500, this course analyzes patterns of religious, commercial, and intellectual communication between Latins, Eastern Christians, Arabs, and Mongols, with attention to the sociopolitical implications of interaction between groups in complex societies. The first part of the course provides the main theoretical tools for a history of cross-cultural encounters in pre-modern times, looking in particular at the Mongol Empire and the Mediterranean Sea as connecting spaces. Afterwards, the focus is on a series of case studies, based on which the class empirically observes patterns of interaction, representation of otherness, and circulation of goods, peoples, and ideas across linguistic, religious, and cultural boundaries and on different scales. Specific attention is devoted to the plurality of representations of the “Orient” produced or circulating in late medieval Europe, regarding them as crucial objects of cultural and religious history. The course discusses how non-Latin and non-Christian peoples fit into Western categories of representations, and what knowledge about Near- and Far-Eastern regions was actually available in the West. By examining specific cases, based on Eastern and Western sources, the course explores the different ways in which medieval travelers took otherness into account, whether internal or external to Christianity, and examines how these accounts fit into precise intellectual schemes and political and religious agendas.

This course offers students a perspective into the contemporary history of science while presenting topics that the history of science has generally marginalized and that are becoming more and more relevant: anatomy studies, the medicine of emotions, the relationship between medical knowledge and experimental science, the conceptions of what is normal and what is pathological through an analysis of monstrosity and the development of theories of contagion. 

This course examines the idea of the communication revolution from two perspectives. First, how have changes in communications technology altered the speed and nature of communication between individuals and societies? The course explores how inventions such as the printing press, the camera and the radio helped connect Latin Americans to national and international networks and gave rise to new political and cultural identities. Second, how have individuals and groups used mass communication to both push for and resist revolutionary change? Examples include the role of print culture in the Atlantic Revolutions, printmaking in the Mexican Revolution and the pioneering use of radio education in the Andean countryside during the 1960s.