Italian Workshop – Laboratorio italiano [Italian]

Ivan Tassi

The course Italian Workshop  Laboratorio Italiano is designed to provide you with cultural, methodological, and linguistic competencies to enhance your intellectual and academic life in Italy and at the University of Bologna. Through this course, you will explore topics spanning various disciplinary fields (literature, art, cinema, history, science) that can enrich your understanding of Italian culture and society over time.

During the first part of the semester, the Laboratorio Italiano lessons introduce you to themes related to the history of the city of Bologna. Our course of study begins with medieval society, progresses through Renaissance and Baroque art, and culminates in the ideology of the anti-fascist Resistance in Bologna. Continue reading Italian Workshop – Laboratorio italiano [Italian]

Mediterranean Ecosystems in Italy: Ecology, Vulnerability, and Protection [Environmental Studies]

Barbara Mikac

Italy occupies a central position in the Mediterranean area and most of its territory is characterized by Mediterranean ecosystems. Mediterranean ecosystems are subject to strong anthropic pressures and are particularly sensitive to climate change which causes drought, fires, and sea level rise, resulting in losses of biodiversity and habitats, pollution and degradation of ecosystems and negative socioeconomic effects.  Continue reading Mediterranean Ecosystems in Italy: Ecology, Vulnerability, and Protection [Environmental Studies]

Modern Italian Art: 1860-2000 [Art History]

Giuseppe Virelli

The goal of the course is to trace a path through Italian artistic production, with a chronological span encompassing the second half of the nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth century.  The focus on Italy will be presented in close relationship with European and extra-European experiences, as contemporary art is not confined to a single geographic location. Continue reading Modern Italian Art: 1860-2000 [Art History]

The Cities of Emilia-Romagna on film [Film Studies]

Piero Di Domenico

The course has two components:  a first part in which students view and discuss Italian films featuring cities in Emilia Romagna, including Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” (Rimini), Florestano Vancini’s “La lunga notte del ’43” (Ferrara), Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Il deserto rosso” (Ravenna), Renato De Maria, “Paz” (Bologna), and Pupi Avati, “Gli amici del bar Margherita” (Bologna). Continue reading The Cities of Emilia-Romagna on film [Film Studies]

The Disobedient, the Abnormal and the Criminal in Italian Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century [Literature]

Giacomo Mannironi

The course focuses on the theme of disobedience from the second half of the 18th century to the opening decades of the twentieth.  Observing how literature, science and the press approach acts of disobedience to societal norms allows to us to understand by way of contrast how the ideal rules of behaviour for men and women—”the good Italian”—in the pre-and post-unification periods were defined. The texts studied in the course illustrate the birth of an ideology that sets out to establish in Continue reading The Disobedient, the Abnormal and the Criminal in Italian Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century [Literature]

To Read a City: Urban History of Bologna since the Medieval Period [Urban Studies/History of Architecture]

Francesco Ceccarelli

Based on the study of selected Italian cities in the north-central region, the goal of this course is to provide the tools to identify the historical and urban factors that have shaped the region Emilia-Romagna and its urban centers, primarily Bologna. Thanks to its well-preserved ancient historical center, Continue reading To Read a City: Urban History of Bologna since the Medieval Period [Urban Studies/History of Architecture]