Italian

This course is for students with some basic knowledge and experience of the target language (TL). The course enables students to understand key information and to communicate effectively in the TL, sometimes spontaneously, in less routine situations, at a standard level, provide opportunities, across a variety of topics, for practice of understanding and communication in the TL using the four language skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing, at a standard level, consolidate and develop the range of key elements of TL language structures, vocabulary, syntax and pronunciation, to allow progression in the TL, and present the background culture and society of the TL through a variety of contextualized activities and materials, in a range of media (e.g. text, audio, audio-visual, digital).

The course investigates how the cultural and creative industries (CCI) work and their capacity to generate economic value for all the stakeholders involved in conceiving, financing, producing, valorizing, releasing, and preserving the cultural goods. The analysis of the CCI business models and organization is integrated by the analysis of the public policies (at supranational, national, and local level) that regulate and support culture and the companies working in this sector.

The class includes meeting with professionals working in cultural companies or institutions and group work with final presentations during the final lectures. Student groups are asked to develop a crowdfunding campaign for a cultural initiative. At the end of the course, the student: knows the principles that regulate the demand and the supply of culture in the contemporary scenario; knows the mechanisms of private and public financing of culture; and is able to reconstruct the policies of support for cultural activities. 

This is a beginner level French language course for students who have previously completed one or two semesters of French. It focuses on the four skills of listening comprehension, spoken production, reading comprehension, and written expression. It develops skills to understand audio and video with multiple speakers, talk about events that happened in the past, describe objects and images, conduct a simple discussion and give an opinion, read and understand short texts, write a short informal letter or email. It covers adjectives, comparatives, superlatives, pronouns, adverbs, indefinites, prepositions, verbs, vocabulary for real-life situations, phonetics and spelling. 

This is a beginner level Italian language course for students with no prior Italian language background. It teaches listening comprehension, spoken production, reading comprehension, and written expression in Italian. It focuses on understanding instructions and following a very simple conversation that relates to everyday life, introducing and talking about ones self, asking questions about someone else, understanding a very simple text relating to daily life, writing a dialogue, short text or email. The course covers articles, nouns, adjectives, demonstratives, possessives, pronouns, adverbs, numbers, prepositions, interrogatives, verbs, vocabulary for real-life situations, and phonetics and spelling.

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 advances the student's knowledge in the main criminological approaches explaining the relationship between crime, culture, and media; they will be able to critically analyze media narratives and recent crime, deviance, and control phenomena emerging in digital societies, relying on contemporary examples and on the related scientific literature.

The course explores the intersection between crime and the media, with particular attention to how deviance and criminality are represented across various mediums, including television, newspapers, cinema, literature, and social media. It also examines criminologically significant phenomena that characterize contemporary digital society, such as digital vigilantism and the spread of fake news. The course fosters a critical and sociological approach among students toward the narratives, images, and phenomena of deviance, crime, and social control that are constructed and reproduced through the media.

In the first part of the course, students are introduced to the main theoretical frameworks developed within criminology in the broad field of crime and media studies, with a particular focus on traditional media. The second part addresses forms of deviance, criminality, control, and harm specific to today’s digital society, drawing on examples from recent literature in digital criminology. The third part focuses on what can be considered ‘classic’ themes within the cultural criminology of media, such as the criminalization of music (and other creative cultural expressions), representations of policing in literature and television, and the phenomenon of trial by media.

This course introduces basic Italian grammar, aiming to help students reach the level required for the Level 5 Italian Proficiency Test. Language and culture are deeply interconnected, so while learning the Italian language, the class explores various aspects of Italian culture and ways of thinking. 

Based on students' interests and requests, the course actively incorporates topics such as history, art, and culinary traditions to make the learning experience as enjoyable and engaging as possible.

Students must have attained the equivalent of A2 Italian language level as a prerequisite. This course is graded pass/no pass only.

The course offers an introduction to the Italian Renaissance through an overall examination of the artistic development evolving between the 15th and 16th centuries in the main courts and cities of the Italian peninsula. Within this broad overview, a selected group of particularly significant works of art are analyzed more in detail, taking into consideration not only material and stylistic aspects, but also social and cultural issues, with a particular attention towards patronage and collecting (female patrons and collectors will be privileged among others).
 

By the end of the course, students will have acquired new tools, methodologies, and skills to develop, outline and clearly express a critically assessed thought on the following aspects:
1. geography and history of the Renaissance (definition of Renaissance, 'centers' of development and diffusion of Renaissance style, the notion of Italian Renaissance in the modern and contemporary critical debate);
2. artistic practices and workshops (the role of 'disegno'; the apprenticeship, training, and progressive emancipation of the artist; traveling artists and exchanges between 'center' and 'periphery')
3. materiality (techniques, style, and display; the renovation of the altarpiece; the oil technique)
4. interpretation of images in relation to texts (iconographic analysis, exchanges between artists and humanists or ‘literati’, with a particular attention for portraits; secular subjects and literary sources)
5. patronage, collecting and society (with a particular attention toward the role of women and the circulation of objects in different networks)

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrolment is by permission of the instructor. 

At the end of the course, students will have acquired knowledge of the theoretical and critical reflections on the performing arts in Italy from the second half of the twentieth century to the first decade of the new millennium, with a particular focus on mise-en-scène and dance. Students will be capable of autonomously analyzing critical, theoretical, and poetic texts regarding the performing arts and will have acquired a series of tools for understanding pertinent iconographic and video documents.

What is performance? How is it related to its cultural and historical context? Which tools does its study provide to read the Italian contemporary culture? The course provides an answer to these questions in regard to the history of the Italian Performance Scene since the Sixties. After a methodological introduction on diverse concepts and theories of performance, the course focuses on the most relevant case studies of New Theatre with a focus on the most engaged forms of theatre, which allow for an introduction to the cultural, social, and political changes that shaped the Italian history in between the Sixties and Seventies. The course then focuses on relevant case studies in Applied and Social Theatre (theatre in prison, in health centers, and with vulnerable communities).

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. By the end of the course, students acquire an updated knowledge about the main phenomena characterising the archaeology of settlements and environment of the Middle Ages. They will be familiar with the main methodological approaches of contemporary research, as well as be able to assess the reliability of the data presented and to highlight their limits. The students acquire a general knowledge about the main aspects of the settlement patterns evolution and the transformations of the environment during the Middle Ages in several geographic contexts. By knowing the different methodological approaches adopted by the contemporary research, the students gain the skills that they need to plan by themselves further studies or fieldwork itself, starting with the best methodological approach and the right research questions.

The course presents a series of research topics and processes through which the history and archaeology of Italian medieval landscapes are explored and compared with those of other areas in medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. To address this subject effectively, the course also delves into key methods and strategies in the archaeology and history of landscapes. The topics covered include: Archaeology, history, and medieval landscapes: methods and strategies; Fortifications and castles; Villages and other rural settlements; Uncultivated and agrarian landscapes; Urban landscapes; New towns and secondary settlements; Churches, monastic landscapes, and deserta; Archaeology of rural lords and peasant communities; The end of the Roman period; Italy: comparative landscapes of the north, center, and south; Italy in comparison with the eastern and western Mediterranean and northern and southern Europe.