Archives

Texts and Ideas: (CORE-UA 9400)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu,Tue
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu,Tue,Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed,Tue,Thu,Tue,Wed,Mon

College Core Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Core Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Texts and Ideas Undergraduate

Culture and Context: Italy (CORE-UA 9554)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

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.

College Core Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Core Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Expressive Culture: (CORE-UA 9732)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Wed

For more than four centuries, opera has made us cry and laugh, and it still speaks to us today about ourselves and our lives. It does so by telling us stories of love and death, of power and despair, through a unique way of combining words, music and stage action, and ever new styles of performance. This course is designed to develop an understanding of the details of such combination and the way they cooperate in making an opera work in general and for us today. It does not develop chronologically, but through exposure to a selection of major works by Monteverdi, Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini. The presentations will be organised around individual operas, exploring their historical background, text and music, performing issues, reception history, and adaptation to other media (not necessarily in this sequence). Each opera will also be taken as a vantage point to explore one main thematic issue, while broader issues – such as genre, the development of formal conventions of librettos and music, Italian opera and its terminology, modes of production, cultural expression, social factors that give rise to certain narratives, how opera fits into the larger history of ideas in Western culture – will build up over the course.

College Core Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Expressive Culture Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Global Media Seminar: Media Activism and Democracy (MCC-UE 9452)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue

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.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Spring 2026 Undergraduate