The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.
The Italian Cinema is a good way to study the whole Italian history, society, ideology and behaviours. The students will have the opportunity to know such authors as Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti, Pasolini, Bertolucci, who are well known in the US. The course will also focus on the difference between auteur films and genre films (comedy, roman-mythological, western, melodrama); it will stress the gender point of view, the problem of a national identity, the role of the film industry. Strong attention will be paid to the relationship between Italian film and literature, art history, television and other disciplines.
To provide the student with an awareness and appreciation of gardens and landscapes of Tuscany from early Roman precedents to the 21st century. The design of the Italian landscape and garden is studied as a means of cultural communication–an expression of a society’s values, philosophy and understanding of the environment. Emphasis is placed on historic precedent, sustainable design techniques utilized in Italian gardens and classic Renaissance design concepts. The format includes lectures, class presentations and field trips.
This course introduces to the many villas surrounding the city of Florence. It aims at illustrating their origins, their history from the Middle-Age to the twentieth century, as well as their economic and ideological factors in the relationship with the city of Florence. The course draws on many disciplines, such as architecture, history, economy, social history, history of art, and landscape art.
This course evaluates marketing as a system for the satisfaction of human wants and a catalyst of business activity. It presents a comprehensive framework that includes a) researching and analyzing customers, company, competition, and the marketing environment, b) identifying and targeting attractive segments with strategic positioning, and c) making product, pricing, communication, and distribution decisions. Cases and examples are utilized to develop problem-solving abilities.
City, territory and architecture have been, from the beginning of photography, privileged objects for its practice. Photography has become a tool to strengthen the understanding of architecture, to highlight aesthetic and design ideas and to critically interpret the space. This class focuses on architectural photography and the photography of urban space, both in relation to their historical roots and contemporary practice. Florence offers a perfect environment to develop one’s artistic talent while learning the art of photography and discovering the secrets of one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Assignments are designed to help explore options for technical control as well as visual experimentation and individual style. Keeping in mind the inseparability of photographic technique and expression, students are expected to articulate their particular choices in relation to the overall conceptual approach of the projects. Critiques of assignments are important to the progress of each individual in the class, to help verbalize visual concepts, and to learn to see actively. The final exam consists of the presentation of a portfolio of photographs and an artist’s statement. Students are expected to work on their projects to develop an aesthetic and coherent photographic language and a personal approach to the photographic medium in a different environment. An emphasis is also placed on refining craft in relation to ideas, and to research on an individual basis, since it is crucial in developing an artistic practice. The course includes lectures, shooting sessions and field trips, discussions and critiques of the photographs. Each student must have a camera with manually adjustable aperture and shutter speed.
City, territory and architecture have been, from the beginning of photography, privileged objects for its practice. Photography has become a tool to strengthen the understanding of architecture, to highlight aesthetic and design ideas and to critically interpret the space. This class focuses on architectural photography and the photography of urban space, both in relation to their historical roots and contemporary practice. Florence offers a perfect environment to develop one’s artistic talent while learning the art of photography and discovering the secrets of one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Assignments are designed to help explore options for technical control as well as visual experimentation and individual style. Keeping in mind the inseparability of photographic technique and expression, students are expected to articulate their particular choices in relation to the overall conceptual approach of the projects. Critiques of assignments are important to the progress of each individual in the class, to help verbalize visual concepts, and to learn to see actively. The final exam consists of the presentation of a portfolio of photographs and an artist’s statement. Students are expected to work on their projects to develop an aesthetic and coherent photographic language and a personal approach to the photographic medium in a different environment. An emphasis is also placed on refining craft in relation to ideas, and to research on an individual basis, since it is crucial in developing an artistic practice. The course includes lectures, shooting sessions and field trips, discussions and critiques of the photographs. Each student must have a camera with manually adjustable aperture and shutter speed.
Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. The course is designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in writing present-day Italian. Conducted in Italian.
Students entering the course should have mastered the fundamental structure of Italian. The course is designed to help students gain confidence and increase their effectiveness in speaking present-day Italian. Through discussions, oral reports, and readings, students develop vocabulary in a variety of topics, improve pronunciation, and learn an extensive range of idiomatic expressions. Conducted in Italian.
This course introduces contemporary Italy in all its complexity and fascination. Reviewing politics, economics, society, and culture over the past two centuries, the course has a primary goal — to consider how developments since the 1800s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today’s Italians. In other words, we are engaged in the historical search for something quite elusive: Italian “identity”. Topics will include the unification of the country, national identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the First World War, and Italian fascism, World War Two and the resistance, the post-war Italian Republic, the economic “miracle”, the South, the Mafia, terrorism, popular culture, and the most recent political and social developments, including Italy and the European Union. Lectures combine with readings and films (taking advantage of Italy’s magnificent post-war cinema).
This course concentrates on the culture, society, and politics of Renaissance and early modern Europe. The course explores several critical topics and themes, including the Italian and Northern Renaissance, the age of religious reform and religious wars, Europe’s “discovery” of other worlds and cultures, the origins and development of national states, the scientific revolution, the European enlightenment, and the origins of the French revolution.
This course will introduce students to social media marketing. Through case studies, interactive sessions, and class exercises, students will learn best practices and develop the skills to connect business objectives with social media strategy, platforms and tactics. We will study how to develop a strategy for a product or service in social media, how to execute that strategy and how to assess the results. Topics will include choosing appropriate platforms, creating effective and engaging social media content, content management, social listening and creating a social media plan. The course also has a practical component, for which students work in small groups and individually.
With extensive readings from Horace?s, Juvenal?s, and Persius?s satires, this class traces the development of the satiric mode from its earliest beginnings in Rome to its flowering under the Empire. The relationship of satire to the social world of Rome, including its treatment of money, women, political figures, and social climbers, is also examined.
This course is conceived as a focused study of the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Sanzio and Michelangelo Buonarroti, the men whose careers largely defined the concept of Western artistic genius. Particular consideration will also be given to their Italian and European contemporaries and followers in order to take advantage of the opportunity to the study these original works on site. High Renaissance art cannot be divorced from its times; thus, much attention will be given to contemporary history, especially Florentine politics and politics in Papal Rome. Special attention will also be given to the evolution of drawing practice in sixteenth-century Italy, an essential development for the changes that took place in the conception of works of art over the course of the century. Themes such as patronage, humanism, interpretations of antiquity, and Italian civic ideals will form a framework for understanding the works of art beyond style, iconography, technique and preservation. As the high Renaissance works are often still in their original physical settings, during field-studies to museums and churches in Florence students will have a unique opportunity to experience the works as their original viewers did and as their creators intended.
THIS COURSE TAKES PLACE AT NYU-FLORENCE. The aim of this course is to explore the history of Italian fashion with an interdisciplinary approach focused on social, cultural, economic and political aspects. By focusing on select topics of key interest students will acquire a basic knowledge of the history of Italian fashion from the Renaissance to the present, understand the complex and multivalent clothing codes that help to order social interaction and learn to decode it. These abilities will provide students with a useful basis for understanding the capital role of the fashion of the past both as the origin of a ‘language’ of clothes still in use and as a boundless source of inspiration for contemporary designers. Conducted in English.
The course examines how Italian identity has been transformed through encounters with foreigners. These foreigners were not only invading armies and colonizing powers but also artists and scholars, travelers and tourists. All contributed in fundamental ways to the evolution of Italian society and culture.Through the study of primary sources we will explore, for example, how the Greek, Arab, Byzantine, and Jewish presences reshaped Italian civilization up until the Renaissance. As well as outlining the historical circumstances for each of these encounters, our account will focus on their cultural consequences from a number of perspectives, from science to language, from philosophy to art and architecture. A field trip to Ravenna (capital of the Western Roman Empire, then of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and later of the Byzantine Exarchate) will offer a vantage point to appreciate the many layers of Italian cultural history. As a case study, we will analyze a number of coeval reports on the sacks of Rome by the Visigoths (410 AD) and by the troops of Charles V (1527).Florence will be used as a primary source. The city and its surroundings will provide the most favorable context also to address the issue of tourism, from the Grand Tour to the most recent developments of mass tourism in Italy.
The course on “Media, Activism & Democracy” aims at, first, introducing students to the complex and fascinating topic of civil society activism; second, at illustrating them the linkages between activism and media; third, at showing them the impact of civil society’s advocacy on contemporary political systems. In a nutshell, the course aims at providing students with a closer understanding of the civil society activism-media-politics conundrums at the national and global levels.
A site for IMA NY Students to find equivalent courses outside of IMA NY
For most students joining IMA in Fall 2022 and beyond, there is a new program structure that affects the categorization of courses on this site:
Any class in any IMA major elective category (ie "Art & Design") refers to the IMA program structure previous to those entering in Fall 2022. If you are in the class of 2026 (most entering Fall 2022 or later), any course in an IMA elective category are generic IMA electives in the new structure.