History

This course focuses on important moments and crucial cultural texts and performances from roughly the 1920s through the 1990s and thus aspires to come to terms with the changes and continuities of the last century in U.S. pop-cultural production. The performers, artifacts, or performances the course considers here were often popular and unpopular at the same time – not only, but often, depending on the kind of audiences they spoke to or were discussed by. Consider, for example, the 1990s boyband phenomenon, but also performers like Madonna, who are adored by some, but hated by others. It is thus the question of (un)popularity that serves as a guiding light for the seminar at hand to make sense of U.S. cultural production in the 20th century and across media.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on the history of Iran and Central Asia from the arrival of Islam to contemporary times. Special attention is placed on the methodology of historical research, and the treatment of historical themes in original and autonomous ways. Students are encouraged to evaluate sources and to know how to orient themselves with regards to specialized bibliographies. Emphasis is placed on how to prepare and communicate knowledge and how to make valid judgments in the historical field. The course is intended as a general introduction to the history of Iran and Central Asia in the Islamic period. Single historical periods are, broadly speaking, indicated below. Students are warmly encouraged to focus on specific thematic topics and to carry on, if possible, with further readings according to their personal interests. Basic historical periods covered: the Islamic penetration in Iran and Central Asia; the Mongol and Timurid periods, Iran and Central Asia under "Turkic" dynasties; the Safavid period and the formation of the so called "national state" in Iran; the contemporary condition of Caucasus and Central Asia and the relations of Iran with Ottoman Empire and Moghul India; contacts with Western countries: missionaries, diplomats and travelers; Iran under the Pahlavis, Caucasus, and Soviet Central Asia: "Cold War" challengers; the present-day situation: a "non-exotic" approach.

This course provides a general survey of the historical development of various aspects of Korean civilization, including politics, society and economy, thought and religion, and the arts. Half of the course covers the main themes in Korean history and their historical interpretations, from prehistoric times to the modern period. It also pays special attention to social systems, religion and culture, as well as the changing geopolitics of the region. The other half of the course will take a comparative approach by examining contemporaneous China, Japan, and northeast Asia, identifying similarities and differences between the regions. Through this course, students will have a better understanding of the challenges Korea faced in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the historical processes through which Korea, China, and Japan developed.

This course examines the Qing Dynasty from its founding in 1644 to the last emperor's abdication in 1912.

This course explores the place of food in art in France, with a focus on the modern and contemporary periods. Throughout the course, representations of food are studied as a means to survey the evolution of French art within a global context, and as significant markers of social, ethnic, and cultural identity. The analysis of these depictions provides the opportunity to learn about dietary and dining customs, habits, and beliefs prevalent in France from the early modern period to the present. The course begins by decoding the archetypal representations of succulent food in the still life and genre painting of 16th-17th-century Holland, which established the conventions of the genre for centuries to come. It then examines how the rise of these previously minor artistic genres in 18th-century France coincided with the birth of French gastronomy. Frivolous depictions of aristocrats wining, dining, and indulging in exotic beverages like coffee and hot chocolate then give way in post-Revolutionary France to visions of austerity and “real life,” featuring potato-eating peasants. The focus then shifts to representations of food and dining in the age of modernity, when Paris was the undisputed capital of art, luxury, haute cuisine, and innovation. The course analyzes how Impressionist picnics and café scenes transgress social and artistic codes. Building on their momentum, Paul Cézanne launches an aesthetic revolution with an apple. Paul Gauguin’s depictions of mangos and guavas speak to his quest for new, “exotic” sources of inspiration, and allow discussion of questions of race, gender, and French colonialist discourse. Drawing from these pictorial and social innovations, the course subsequently observes the place of food and dining themes in the avant-garde movements of early 20th-century Paris, whose defiance of conventional society and art leads them to transform previously comforting themes into troubling ones.  It questions the place of food—or its absence—in art to capture the suffering and violence of upheavals like the Second World War and consider the place of food and dining in contemporary art: from the Pop Art movement’s calling into question postwar consumer society through its representations of mass-produced food; to contemporary creators in a plural and globalized art scene who use these traditional themes to challenge the status and roles of the artist, the spectator, and the work of art itself; to how depictions of food in visual art grapple with multiculturalism in France today.

The course looks at all aspects of the Pan-African Movement from its origins in the Black diaspora to its twenty-first century expression. It seeks to study the impact of the Pan-African Movement on politics and society in the Black Diaspora and on Africa. It emphasizes the reasons for the Pan-African congresses, issues discussed during these congresses and some outcomes of the congresses. Topics include the Pan-African Congresses, the Back-to-Africa movement, the African personality, African Renaissance, Garveyism, and the Diaspora’s relations with the African Union.