New Courses 2021/22
General Modules
Migrations in World History
Instructor: TBA
Transport History
Instructor: Massimo Moraglio
The course will offer to the students a theoretical framework about the social, cultural and political (gendered) value of transport and mobility, giving them innovative and tools to define movements of people, object and ideas. The critical approach to the traditional historiography, as well as to the current policies in transport, will give them skill to better frame transport´s culture(s) and mobilities in a long-term view.
Ideas and Cultures in Motion
Instructor: Lucio Biasiori
The goal of this course is to understand ideas and cultures on the move, showing how they have been transmitted and are the result of continuous contacts across global spaces, particularly during the Renaissance. Instead of de-constructing the Renaissance and showing many Renaissances in other civilisations, such as those of China, India and Arabia, the course aims to re-construct another Renaissance, when Italy – and Florence in particular – was deeply connected to the rest of the world through economic, artistic and cultural exchange.
Communication and Media in History
Instructors: Federico Mazzini
When moving across time and places, actors and the media shape networks and spaces of communication that systematically challenge the paradigms proposed by political and institutional history. In the past five centuries in particular, the dissemination of handwritten news, the spread of the printed book and the invention of the telegraph, television and, finally, the internet have all designed new geographies of communication and knowledge. This class is an introduction to media history and a methodological discussion on the mobility of knowledge and the study of its technical means.
Digital Tools for Mobility Research
Instructor: Federico Mazzini
The class will explore the effects of digital technologies on historical research and communication; it will explain the spatial and chronological contextualization of historical sources; it will give students an overlook of some of the most important digital tools available to historians and humanists; it will critically review some of the most famous digital history projects and digital archives; it will discuss the legislation on intellectual property; it will foster learning by doing with frequent exercises on tools and software.
History and Social Sciences
Commodity Chains in World History
Instructors: Andrea Caracausi
This course introduces students to the study of economies and historical systems, combining the heuristic tool of the commodity-chain approach (CCA) with the methods of the historical sciences. Conceiving commodities as the outcome of labour- and production-process networks, we will focus on the social relations and economic organisations that characterise production, distribution, marketing and consumption. Monopoly, ownership, labour control and cyclical economic changes will allow us to understand economic convergences and divergences across the world over the last millennium.
History of Tourism
Instructors: Andrew Holden
The course aims to analyse tourism through a historical lens charting its processes and evolution into a global phenomenon. A key component of contemporary tourism is the vector of mobility that determines its social impact. The annual movement of approximately 1.4 billion people traversing international frontiers conveys with it a range of cultural, environmental and economic consequences that need to be understood, managed and planned for if tourism is to be a component of a sustainable future. In 1950 there were 25 million international travellers and the 1.4 billion of today will continue to increase on the praxis of the continuing integration of tourism into global lifestyles in response to economic advancement. But without looking back to understand the complexity of tourism’s evolution it is impossible to plan for its future.
Demography and Migration
Instructors: Irene Barbiera e Gianpiero dalla Zuanna
The aim of the course is to make students familiar with the interpretation of migration dynamics in a demographic perspective. Through the discussion of the different interpretative theories and the analysis of different case studies, we will try to understand the complex mechanisms that determine different migratory phenomena in the past and present. In particular, students will get some basic skills on economic, cultural, social and environmental phenomena and how they interact with different forms of migration, what is their impact on the departing and hosting communities. The ability to critically analyze sources and data useful for understanding and interpreting past and present migratory phenomena in a global and interdisciplinary perspective will also be developed.
World religions in Global History
Instructors: Lucio Biasiori
The contemporary world is marked by religious conflicts. To understand how to resolve them, it is necessary to understand how they arose and developed. This course seeks to explain that.
Space, Place and Mobility
Instructor: Chiara Rabbiosi
This course explores mobility as an empirical reality and an analytic paradigm from a human-geographic perspective. Key terms – such as place, the local, the global and territoriality – are challenged in the light of the so-called mobility turn. Reasons for movement, sensory aspects and mobility performances will also be questioned, as they blend with the diverse politics of space. Students will be asked to share their mobility experiences and take part in ongoing problem-based assignments.
Cultural Encounters
Instructor: Paolo Grassi
Museums, Collections, Heritage
Instructor: Elena Canadelli
This course explores mobility as a defining characteristic in the life and history of objects. We follow different things through their uses, itineraries, trajectories and circulations in space and time. Key terms from museum studies and material culture – such as origin, provenance, collection and heritage – are addressed in the light of the so-called mobility turn. Students will be asked to be active learners through a variety of object-based activities and visits to museums throughout the course.
Theory and Methods
Big Data and Social Network Analysis
Instructor: Daniel Zilio
This course is an introduction to basic DH tools and methods necessary for successful work in Mobility Studies, and in the humanities at large. It teaches students to describe and contextualize the epistemic peculiarities of digital humanities research, to assess the various stages of data lifecycles, and to understand and apply different computational methods (like topic modelling, or SNA) to appropriate historical datasets. A good command of English, but no previous programming skills, are required.
Archives and Libraries on the Move
Instructor: Paola Molino
Students will be introduced to libraries and archives from 1500 onwards, in the framework of the history of written cultures worldwide. They will become familiar with concepts and definitions related to libraries and archives history, and with different means of mobility of papers and people that are related to these two institutions, including loans, thefts, travel, colonial and war requisitions, circulation of catalogues. At the end of the seminar they will be able to provide a historical grounded definition of what libraries and archives have been in the past and how they can be thought and re-imagined in the future. They will be able to critically read primary sources related to the mobility of the book and written documents and will be introduced to some basic theories and practices of cataloguing through time and space, useful for possible future internships.
Literature, Law and Social Sciences
English as a Global Language
Instructor: Larysa Fabiano
The goal of the course entitled English as a Global Language is to explore the dynamics that have made English a global language. Take a detour along the many Englishes and discover their different identities.
The classroom brings real-world experiences, creativity and fosters a dynamic academic environment where students are not only exposed to different kinds of accents, pronunciations, stereotypes, beliefs and behaviours, but they are also encouraged to think broadly, historically, and critically about what drives a language to spread, affirm itself and influence the way people think of it.
Texts on the move
Instructor: TBA
This course will be available since a.y. 2021-2022
Digital Philology
Instructor: Julie Giovacchini
The purpose of the lecture is to offer a critical overview of the field of digital humanities applied to classical studies as well as an in-depth introduction to the principles of data structuring and text encoding for critical edition of Classics corpora.
Global Economy in historical perspective
Instructor: Lucia Coppolaro
The course will allow students to grasp the origin and the main characteristics of the global economy and to critically discuss the main arguments for and against globalization, the relation between globalization and democracy, globalization and inequality. Special attention will be dedicate to Europe and its role in making and governing globalization. […]
European and global citizenship
Instructor: Guido Gorgoni
The purpose of the course is to provide students with an understanding of the profound changes of the concept of citizenship, particularly in the European context.
By the end of the class, successful students will be able to a) identify the main developments of the European Citizenship in the context of the EC and of the EU; c) to distinguish the fundamental rights that constitute the content of European citizenship and their judicial protection; d) to understand the transformation of the concept of citizenship in the post-national context. […]
Gender EU politics and globalization
Instructor: Lorenza Perini
The aim of the course is to make the students aware that the impact of the process of policy- making, in all the possible fields of social and political life, can be intersectionally and this different impact can hide discrimination and imbalance. […]
Economic globalization and human rights
Instructor: Roberto Antonietti
At the end of the course, students will be able to find and interpret data and statistics concerning the globalization of production and the main human development indicators.
In addition, students should acquire the capabilities for a critical evaluation of the socio-economic impact of production globalization processes, with a focus on multinationals, foreign direct investments, and offshoring strategies.. […]
Laboratories
Electronic Sheets for Historians
Instructor: Andrea Dalla Zuanna
Quantitative Approaches to Mobility Research
Instructor: Andrea Caracausi
The workshop aims to teach students to quantitative approaches to mobility studies, through the use of sources and databases. We will learn how to read documents and how to use this document in a quantitative way.
The aim is to introduce the reading of sources and their use (also through computer software) in order to develop individual research.
Public Digital History
Instructor: Aleksei Kraikovskii
This course will be available since a.y. 2021-2022
Data Visualization
Instructor: Marco Orlandi
The workshop aims to provide an overview of the main techniques and methodologies for the graphical representation of information.
Students will be able to deal with one or more case studies through practical exercises.
Others
Academic English: Speaking and Writing
Coordinator: Enrico Francia
Work Placement and Training
Coordinator: Elena Canadelli
Final Exam