International Studies

How do different actors shape, relate to, sustain or contest the shifting orthodoxies of development? This course is organized as a genealogy of development policy thinking from post-war decolonization onwards. It gives students an essential introduction to the evolution of international development as a global project from its post-World War II origins to the present day. It maps out the key moments (of innovation, crisis, and reinvention) in that evolution and the shifts in thinking that underpin changes in global development agendas/policy.

The course discusses human rights in an interdisciplinary manner as legal, political, and cultural phenomena in both Europe and Asia, in particular China. This is an interdisciplinary course, combining approaches from law and the humanities. 

This course provides a critical introduction to three major related areas of international law that focus on the protection of the human beings: international human rights law, international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict), and international criminal law. The course covers the main normative instruments and principles relating to the international protection of human rights, the rules aimed at limiting the effects of armed conflict, and the criminal repression of individuals under international law; and assesses the flaws and limitations of the international system, as well as the benefits and practical consequences of using the remedies it provides.

The course introduces a variety of concepts and theories to analyze global governance, with a focus on organizations and institutions including international and regional organizations, firms, and NGOs. Course materials discuss topics from international relations, political science, economics, sociology, and anthropology. Substantively, the course covers diverse issues such as security, development, and science.   

Drawing on the seminar style, the course requires each person to contribute through discussion, presentation, and a written research proposal on topics of their choice.   

The course explores the geopolitics of borders in today's world. Topics include: defining, drawing, and managing borders; borders of the Spanish state.

This course focuses on international security with a constructivist approach. It relates the security sector's response to the 9/11 attacks in the United States and studies the international security framework that has been centered on anti-terrorism against Al Quaeda and Daech, from 2001 to 2011 (ending at the death of Bin Laden), through films and TV shows. The course draws on the theoretical apparatus of the aesthetic turn and recent work on fictional representation and its impact on public space, as well as on security policies themselves. Fiction is not just a matter of a more or less realistic representation of reality, but an increasingly influential and even central element in defining the repository for security policies.

What does it mean to exert, obey, resist, or think power? How does political power relate to violence and authority? What is the relationship between secular and religious notions of power? In inviting students to reflect upon these questions through a wide range of texts and classroom dynamics, this course explores the concept of political power and its multiple forms of expression, thus introducing critical theory, political thinking, and the global humanities. Topics include imperialism and colonialism; democracy; sovereignty; the relationship between intellectuals and power; feminist and revolutionary perspectives on power; critical, pedagogical, and aesthetic approaches to political power relations. 

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. The course provides advanced knowledge on US foreign policy from 1945 until the election of Donald Trump. Examining the role of the United States within the international system, at the end of the course students are able to: describe the different historical phases of US foreign policy; detect the multiple political, geopolitical, and economic factors that have affected the development of US foreign policy; analyze the transitional moments and the turning points in the evolution of US foreign policy; and understand the link between domestic and foreign policy. The course examines the history of United States foreign relations – broadly defined – from the end of second world war to the election of Donald Trump. Examining the US role and place in the world, specific questions are raised and discussed, including: what triggered the American hegemonic rise; how do we conceptualize the response to the deployment of America’s multifaceted global power; and how do we investigate the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy choices? The course considers the impact of the political, geopolitical, and economic transformations of the past century on the foreign policy choices and particular attention is paid to specific turning points and transition moments (i.e.: the modernization policy of the Sixties, the crisis of the Seventies, the end of the Cold War, 9/11, and the war on terrorism). After a broad introductory lecture on the origins of United States foreign policy, the course follows a chronological pattern. Historiographical debates and issues are also thoroughly discussed and examined, starting from the current debate on the end of the American century.

This course examines society’s continuing fascination with competitive sports and explore their role in European societies from the late 19th century to the end of the Cold War through the lenses of empire, nation, class, race, and gender.

This course explores issues pertaining to inter-Korean relations through the diverse representations of Korea's national division and the Korean War within film and literature from the mid-1940s to the present. It considers how changes in geo-cultural politics at the local and transnational levels have influenced the cinematic and literary imagination of national division and the Korean War in the South, while also exploring the representation of the divided Korea in North Korea. Through the close reading of selected film and literary texts, it investigates a range of perspectives on inter-Korean relations, and study how hegemonic visions of the two Koreas are reproduced, negotiated, and challenged in these texts. Informed by secondary sources, including critical essays in such fields as film and literary criticism, cultural studies, social science, and history, the course critically interprets the discursive construction of a divided Korea in our primary sources from the perspective of political, social, and cultural history.