Courses - Spring 2013

Students will gain understanding of the basic messages in simple oral and written
communication. They will be able to acquire key information from listening and reading brief, simple, authentic material and have a fair understanding of the meaning of short standard Italian conversation in a limited number of content areas. Students will be able to engage in basic conversation
as well as to initiate communication on familiar topics. Strong emphasis will be given to communicative
situations involving first and second person forms; writing activities with pertinent vocabulary
and structure will include simple autobiographical information, brief messages, simple forms and lists. Linguistic structures : subject pronouns, articles, adjectives, prepositions, present and present perfect indicative.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Extensive Elem I

Students will gain understanding of oral and written material on a variety of topics, ranging from personal routine to include family, taste and hobbies. Their understanding will include present and past events. Students will be able to engage in conversations on a variety of real-life situations regarding familiar subjects, to respond to open-ended questions and initiate communication on these topics. They will be able to give and follow directions, instructions and commands. Skills in mono-directional oral presentation will begin to emerge. Writing activities will include narration of present and past events, personal experiences, school and work situations, as well as brief messages to family and friends. Linguistic structures: subject and object pronouns, articles, adjectives, present indicative and imperative, the two main past tenses in use in contemporary Italian.

Sample Syllabus

This daily course immerses students in the Italian language. The basic structures and vocabulary of the Italian language are presented. Students are also provided with systematic practice of oral Italian through dialogues, pattern drills, and exercises. Special emphasis is given to correct pronunciation, sound placement, and intonation. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Extensive Elem I & II or Intensive Elementary Italian

Students will gain understanding of oral and written communication on various topics in the past, present and future in addition to expressions of personal wishes, feelings and hopes.
Students will recognize key information in the reading and listening of authentic material and will understand, to some extent advanced texts featuring narration and description of events.
Students will be able to handle most conversation tasks and standard social situations. Students will be able to write short letters and short paragraphs and show command of simple sentence syntax. Linguistic structures: students will be familiar with increasingly complex grammatical content, such as indirect and combined pronouns, future tense, conditional and subjunctive modes.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Extensive Interm I

Students will gain understanding of oral and written material ranging from general routine and leisure time activities, to more complex topics such as politics, environmental issues, and work environment. Students will be able to read and appreciate pertinent authentic texts. Students will be able to handle most uncomplicated conversation tasks and standard social situations. Students will be able to debate and argue for opposite viewpoints on a range of topics, to make comparisons and hypothesis. Presentation skills, written and oral, will solidify; skills in narrating in paragraphs begin to emerge and develop in a creative direction. Linguistic structures: students will gain knowledge of increasingly complex verbal forms such as all tenses of the subjunctive mode, past conditional and preterit, as well as several elaborate grammatical structures.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 1 & ITAL-UA 2, Elementary Italian I & II; or ITAL-UA 10, Intensive Elementary Italian

This course offers students who are at the intermediate level a daily immersion class. The acquisition and practice of more sophisticated structures of Italian are undertaken. Fundamental oral and written skills are developed, and vocabulary enrichment and conversational ability are emphasized. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 11, ITAL-UA 12, Intermediate Italian I & II; or ITAL-UA 20, Intensive Intermediate Italian

Intensive review of Italian grammar through written and oral exercises, conversations, compositions, translation, and readings from contemporary Italian literature. Conducted in Italian.

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisites: ITAL-UA 30, Advanced Review of Modern 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.

Sample Syllabus 

Co-Requisite: Conversations in Italian - ITAL-UA 9101

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.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

NYU Students who have already taken ARTH-UA 2 will not receive major credit for ARTH-UA 5 [Renaissance Art survey] or ARTH-UA 6 [Modern Art survey].

The city of Florence will be the classroom as students study the masters, explore museums, examine texts, and analyze the historical significance of monuments. With eyes cast simultaneously on painting, the graphic arts, sculpture, and architecture, this class will explore a broad range of art patronage that included religious and civic bodies, princely courts, and a growing number of private clients. The course will focus on points of intersection, transition, and the transformations that lead from one tradition to the next. Above all, our approach will encourage critical thinking and a search for unifying connections in studying the underlying logic of image making. Works will be examined on their native terms: both as physical objects, with sensitivity to their particular function and intended reception, and as visual images active within larger contexts. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Art History students: This course counts for advanced Ancient/Medieval credit.

This course provides students with an awareness of and appreciation for the cultures and civilization of ancient Italy from 1000 B.C. to 200 A.D. The lectures will examine significant examples of sculpture, painting, architecture, city-planning and the minor arts of the period. The course will include local field trips to important sites and exhibits. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Prerequisite: ARTH-UA 0002 (History of Western Art II), or ARTH-UA 0005 (Renaissance Art), or AP Art History score of 5, or permission of the instructor. Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Advanced Renaissance/Baroque credit.

This course is conceived as a focused study of the works of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo, the men whose careers largely defined the concept of Western artistic genius. Particular consideration will also be given to their Florentine contemporaries and followers in order to take advantage of the opportunity to the study these original works on site. 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.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Art History elective credit.

Students trace the birth, evolution, decline, revival, and most recent developments of Italian fashion from the Late Gothic Age to the present "made in Italy" design. Italian fashion styles are decoded in relation to art history in an international, social and economic context. Fashion and its connections with culture, subculture, gender and communication are emphasized. On-site visits also illustrate the dominating role of Florence in fashion from its origin until now. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

The aim of this course is to provide an integrated approach to Museum theory and practice. It is designed for those students who are interested in the history and the nature of Museums, Museum management (including the international art legislation), the methods of research and documentation (file system and photography), conservation methodologies to preserve the collections in a Museum context, and the means of presenting all kinds of art objects to the public (the education role of the museum in the society). Themes such as the change of the artistic taste, the role of the artists, the collectors and the dealers in the creation of the public galleries and the house museums will be discussed. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

In this course, students learn how to ‘read’ and interpret the city by analyzing the architecture and the outdoor spaces that the buildings define. We adopt the approach of art history, architectural history,
and urban planning to study the buildings and monuments of Florence from antiquity to the present. On site, students consider buildings in context, and learn how to describe the architectural language used by architects over the centuries. Students learn about the building materials and technologies. They learn how to identify the typology and dynamics of buildings, monuments, and outdoor spaces, and their transformations (in form and function). They experience the coexistence of private and sacred in religious buildings, and of private and public in both residential and civic buildings.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students must bring their own camera and use either a digital or a traditional 35mm manual adjust camera for this class.

Students registering for this course must also register for Lab section.

The course will provide the students with the appropriate tools for understanding and photographing the architecture of Florence, using different photographic techniques, and aiming to define a personal approach. The students will be able to explore different architecture styles following various photographic assignments. At the end of the course the students will produce a portfolio on the architecture of Florence. Lectures will cover the History of Photography, with a special attention to Italian architecture and urban photography, History of Architecture in Florence, technical aspects related to photography production. Students will pursue digital and traditional photographic techniques in the course. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students must bring their own camera and use either a digital or a traditional 35mm manual adjust camera for this class.

Students registering for this course must also register for the Lecture section. 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class

Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Urban Design credit and Art History elective credit.

The city of Florence has long been admired for its combination of buildings and gardens. This course emphasizes the art of garden and landscape design, with tours to sites around the city and the surrounding areas. The starting point of the course is the 57 acres of historically significant landscape surrounding NYU's Villa La Pietra, with Renaissance-style gardens, rolling hills, and olive groves, all located within the city limits of Florence. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Students in the Art History Dept: This course counts for Urban Design credit, but not Art History credit.

The city of Florence presents important aspects for a visual study of the Renaissance and its messages. This class will stress the ways to visualize the city through the keeping of a sketchbook. There will be walking tours in the city to explore topics and places for the students to draw. No art background necessary. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

When speaking of great contemporary patrons of the arts, we often hear someone called “a modern Medici.” What exactly does this phrase mean and how did the family name of the principal banking house of Renaissance Florence become synonymous with the sponsorship of cultural endeavors? This course attempts to answer these questions and others by examining the development of Medici patronage from the emergence of the family as a political force at the dawn of the Renaissance to the establishment of the grand ducal dynasty that reigned for almost two centuries in Florence. The commissions of Cosimo the Elder, Piero the Gouty, Lorenzo the Magnificent, the two Medici Popes (Leo X and Clement VII) and the first three Medic Grand Dukes (Cosimo I, Francesco I and Ferdinando I) are given particular emphasis. Issues such as familial pietas, the power and influence of Medici women and the varying political climate in Florence and Rome are also considered as fundamental to the development of characteristically Medicean patterns of patronage.

The role of the patron in determining the ultimate appearance of works of art and architecture is given primary consideration here. The Medici are therefore considered as a test case for understanding the importance of patronage for the history of Renaissance art. This may be best examined through the Medici’s continued patronage of certain artists over extended periods of time. The works of artists such as Brunelleschi, Michelozzo, Donatello, Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Bandinelli, Vasari and Buontalenti, all of whom produced significant numbers of works under the aegis of the Medici, are therefore the main focus of the lectures, class discussions and site visits. Comparison of Medici modes of patronage with local would-be rivals or imitators and with great foreign patrons will help to provide a measure of what is both characteristic of all Renaissance patrons and what is unique to the Medici themselves.

Sample Syllabus

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Art History students: This course counts for Art History elective credit.

Step back in time and study like a Renaissance apprentice using the same materials and techniques that Giotto, Leonardo and Michelangelo used. Working only with those materials used in the Renaissance (no modern art materials permitted), students will follow the same course of artistic instruction common to a Renaissance workshop. You will learn to draw with silverpoint, charcoal, and natural chalks, make your own paper, prepare panels, grind pigments for painting, execute in fresco, egg tempera and oil and learn how to use gold leaf. Lectures and drawing sessions will be held in the various museums and churches where students will be required to copy from masterpieces of the Renaissance. The course is a step back in time to learn techniques that have been lost and to revive the spirit of art creation that has made Florentine art admired for centuries. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

An introduction to the area of financial accounting. Encompasses accounting concepts from the point of view of the corporate investor and business management. Accounting procedures are discussed to facilitate the comprehension of the recording, summarizing, and reporting of business transactions. The basic principles of asset valuation and revenue and cost recognition are presented. Various asset, liability, and capital accounts are studied in detail with emphasis on an analytical and interpretive approach. The area of financial accounting is further analyzed through a discussion of the concepts and underlying financial statement analysis and the exposition of funds flow. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

Evaluates, from the management point of view, marketing as a system for the satisfaction of human wants and as a catalyst of business activity. Deals with the subject at all levels from producer to consumer and emphasizes the planning required for the efficient use of marketing tools in the development and expansion of markets. Concentrates on the principles, functions, and tools of marketing, including quantitative methods. Utilizes cases and projects to develop a problem-solving ability in dealing with specific areas.

Sample Syllabus 

Co-requisite: Enrollment in a screening time.

This course covers Italian film from the beginnings of the neo-realist movement to 1960, concentrating both on the aesthetic, theoretical development of neorealism and on its political, economic, social, and cultural context. Directors studied in detail include Rossellini, Visconti, de Sica, and Antonioni. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Co-requisite: Enrollment in Italian Cinema Lecture

Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist writers in both Britain and the United States were fascinated by Italy. The "Italy and Italians" of the title refers not only to images and characters in the works of the British and American authors we will be reading but also to their affinities with Italian literature. Recurring themes in the course will be history and its uses in literature, gender and sexuality, democracy and aristocracy, language and power, and religion as an instrument of sexual repression.

Sample Syllabus

Although the Italian peninsula has been the site of some of the oldest and most significant
civilizations in Western history, the modern Italian state is relatively young, having been
established only in 1861. Italy’s geographical and cultural complexities have ensured that
regional identities throughout the country remain strong, to the extent that many Italians
still identify closely with their more immediate social, cultural, and political traditions.
Furthermore, Italy is positioned as a gateway of the Mediterranean world, making it both
the center (if one views it from the shores of North Africa) and the periphery (if one views
it from the countries bordering the North Sea) of Europe. This course will focus on the
tensions and ambiguities present in post‐unification Italian society, using the rich cultural
and social heritage of Florence as a starting point for the study of the delicate mixture of
regional and national elements that make up contemporary Italy.

Sample Syllabus

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisites: Pre-calculus or equivalent level of mathematical training

Introduction to the American economy, elements of supply and demand, and basic macroeconomic principles. Includes national income and employment, money, banking, inflation, business fluctuations, monetary and fiscal policy, the balance of payments, and comparative economic systems. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisites: Pre-calculus or equivalent level of mathematical training

Focuses on individual economic decision makers—households, business firms, and government agencies—and how they are linked together. The emphasis is on decision making by households and firms and how these decisions shape our economic life. Explores the different environments in which businesses sell their products, hire workers, and raise funds to expand their operations; the economic effects of various government policies, such as minimum wage legislation, rent controls, antitrust laws, and more. Conducted in English.

Prerequisites: ECON-UA 1 Economic Principles or ECON-UA 5 Intro to Economic Analysis or equivalents

The financial crisis that hit the global economy since the summer of 2008 is without precedent in post-war economic history. Although its size and extent are exceptional. the crisis has many features in common with similar financial-stress driven recession episodes in the past. However, this time there’s something different, with the crisis being global akin to the events that triggered the Great Depression of the 1930s. This crisis spread quickly and rapidly moved from the US to European countries that show the weakest economic indicators (PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland and Italy, Greece and Spain). This course will focus on the long run causes, consequences and EU responses to the crisis, conditionally on the characteristics of the countries involved. We will focus on the long process of European Integration and discuss whether it may represent a possible solution to the recent crisis.

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisite: ECON-UA 1 (Economic Principals) or ECON-UA 5 (Introduction to Economic Analysis)

We offer a perspective on the workings of the monetary and financial system within a country and at an international level. The role of money and the tools to conduct monetary policy will be analyzed in detail. The concept of the value of money now and in the future helps in understanding the role of interest rates and of risk; various way to store wealth will take us into the structure of financial markets where financial instruments are created and traded to meet diverse needs. Some basic concepts on the role played by commercial banks will introduce the function of the Central Bank and of monetary policy in the overall goal of ensuring financial stability to the system. Current issues, such as the role of the European Central Bank and the instability created by the subprime mortgage crisis, will be discussed.

Sample Syllabus 

Prerequisites: Intermediate Microeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, & International Economics (NYU ECON-UA 10, ECON-UA 12, & ECON-UA 238) or equivalents.

This course aims at offering a global perspective on development, long term change in the world economy, and the interaction between countries, regulatory systems and firms. Recent developments have changed completely the patterns of development and the relationships between developed and developing/emerging countries.
The focus of the course is on the shift of production to East Asia, on poverty and inequality, on the dynamics of international trade and investment, including changes in production patterns (outsourcing, offshoring, service offshoring), on the relationship between trade and economic growth, trade imbalances and protectionism, and on the impact of technological innovation on international competitiveness.

Sample Syllabus

This course is not open to NYU Stern students.

Prerequisites: Microeconomics & Macroeconomics (ECON-UA 1 and ECON-UA 2) or equivalents.

Movements of goods and services are at the basis of globalization, fostering the allocation of production geographically far from consumption. We analyze models which show the gains from international trade and the direction of trade and circumstances under which the welfare costs of protectionism can offer some strategic incentives for governments to redistribute wealth. Globalization has highlighted the role of multinational corporations and of foreign direct investment. Trade is matched by movements of capital (both recorded in the balance of payments), and therefore by exchanges of national currencies. We look at exchange rate determination and at the consequences of government intervention in foreign exchange markets. Case studies are studied throughout.

Sample Syllabus

European cities are generally more sustainable in terms of resources and
waste management than their American counterparts. The ecological
footprint, that is, the proportion of material and energy consumed for the
daily needs of a single person, ranks a third to 50% less, while the quality of
life rates higher. This difference derives partly from the culture and density
coming from the pre-industrial origins of European cities and partly from a
conscientious effort by politicians and administrators to encourage
alternatives to reduce greenhouse gases.

On completion of this course, students should:
• A comparative knowledge of the issues and ethics of sustainability
• A critical purview of urbanism in 20th-21st-century Europe
• active research on the application of sustainable policies

Sample Syllabus

This course is for Global Liberal Studies students only.

Course description coming soon.

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

The course will explore the unusually rich artistic and textual record of medieval holy people and places in Tuscany, and one site Umbria, Assisi. The goal of the course is to consider the intersection of popular religious expression, individual extraordinary lives, and the art and architecture produced by the society to celebrate its spiritual heroes. Students will be immersed in Italian medieval texts, art, and architecture as a means of understanding a vivid past which illuminates medieval civic pride and served as a springboard to the Italian Renaissance. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

The course will illustrate the fundamental steps that marked the development of science and technology from the ancient world to the affirmation of modern science during the Scientific Revolution.

Sample Syllabus

Politics and society, war and peace in modern Europe over a fifty-year period in the middle of the last century. The primary goal of this course is to consider how developments since the 1930s have influenced the lives and formed the outlook of today's Europeans. This course relies heavily on historically-based novels to explore the topics of particular concern: European fascism, the Second World War, the division of Europe and the Cold War, reconstruction and economic "miracle" in western Europe, de-colonization, eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the 1960s, and the collapse of communist states in the 1980s. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

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).

Sample Syllabus 

The Eurovision Song Contest is the world’s biggest popular music event: held annually in May, it includes entries from almost every European country and attracts over a hundred million viewers, making it one of the most-watched television events in Europe. Eurovision was established in 1956 in order to promote cultural cooperation among Western European countries that were then pursuing their first steps towards economic and political integration through the European Coal and Steel Community, Euratom and the European Economic Community. This course will use Eurovision to analyse major political issues that have accompanied European integration since 1956. In doing so, it will require students to analyse the cultural, political and social significance of entries through their lyrics, music, costumes and dances, as well as the media commentary that accompanied them. They will look at how countries use the contest to define themselves within a European context, be it to assert their national distinctiveness or to affirm their “Europeanness.”

Sample Syllabus

Next to many archives covering past centuries, Florence also hosts one of the most important archives for the study of contemporary history, namely the archive on the European Union. It is organizationally and academically linked to the European University Institute (EUI), also located in Florence, a top-level interdisciplinary graduate institute and think tank.

An archive on the EU represents a welcome challenge for history students, since it is not completely clear "what the EU is". It is neither a state in the traditional sense, nor is it limited to being an international organization. Whereas most forms of stateness in Europe and in the rest of the democratic world can be considered more or less stable, the EU is still a political actor in the making - and there is evidence that it will remain a moving target for historians, political scientists, law experts and economists for still many years to come. Thus, different from other archives, the archive on the EU does not contain documents and information on a historical process which is already completed, but which is and will still be ongoing.

Sample Syllabus

What is the role of the family in Italy? Italy is well-known for being a family centered society.
What are the causes and consequences of this phenomenon? Since the 1960s, the family has
undergone a series of changes, due to the women’s movement, decrease of marriages, fall of
birthrate, etc. Is the family loosing its centrality in Italy? According to some scholars, the family
is still one of the few shared values in Italy. The course will investigate the social function of the
family in Italy, from the political unification of the country to the present. We will also analyze
ideas of femininity and masculinity conveyed by the media and their connections to the idea
of Italianness. The imagined Italian community was constructed on the site of the female body
which was meant to epitomize a series of values such as fertility, health, prosperity, purity,
tradition, etc. The course will also map the condition of women and LGBT people in Italy today.

Sample Syllabus

The course is a voyage through the fascinating and complex history and culture of the
Italian South, from the first half of the Nineteenth Century to the present day. Adopting
an interdisciplinary approach we will explore the rich patrimony of southern history, as
well as the violence of a society with neither rules nor justice.

Sample Syllabus

Please note that this course is taught in Italian.

Obiettivo principale del corso è lo studio del panorama letterario dell’Italia del XIX e del  XX secolo con particolare attenzione alla lettura e all’analisi di alcune opere che rivestono un ruolo di particolare rilievo nella storia della letteratura italiana.  Il corso, condotto interamente in lingua italiana, prevede  lo studio dei principali scrittori e poeti della letteratura italiana dell’Ottocento e del Novecento e del contesto storico-culturale in cui sono inseriti.

Sample Syllabus

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

This course analyzes Dante's poetry in itself and as an object of translation and adaptation. The text of the Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line journey through the afterlife, will be studied in terms of its transmission and reception in contemporary culture. Emphasis will be put on Dante's influence on literature, art, music, media and film. The text is read in translation with references to the original Italian facing text. Conducted in English. 

Sample Syllabus

The course focuses on Boccaccio's Decameron and explores the transformations of the comic in late Medieval and Renaissance collections of novelle. The cultural and social history of laughter (Bakhtin) from the European Middle Ages and the transformations of the narrative comic genres constitute the main frameworks of analysis for this course. Special attention shall be given to the cultural and linguistic "polyphony” of the novel with its mixture of extra literary codes (popular, courtly, legal, historical, religious, "scientific" etc.). The notion of "civilization of manners" ( Norbert Elias) and the social and linguistic process of transformation of literary and socio-cultural forms of rhetorics, around the time of the publication of The Courtier, shall be also addressed in detail. The course is conducted in English and required readings are in translation.

Sample Syllabus

Italian instruction will be offered for Italian Immersion students.

Presents a study of post-World War II Italian politics and society in comparative and historical perspective. Seeks explanations of Italian political development in specific historical factors such as the 19th century patterns of state formation and the experience of fascism. Comparative analysis seeks to show how the social structure, political culture, and party systems have shaped Italy's distinct development. Current and recurrent political issues include the problem of integrating the south into the national economy and state response to social movements, particularly terrorism. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus 

This course provides a thorough introduction to the international system for the protection of human rights and the preconditions under which it functions at international and national levels. The course aims to develop the students' interest in, and knowledge of, international human rights; to explore human rights theory and practice; to introduce various human rights conventions and mechanisms, particularly the United Nations system; and to provide advanced instruction in several key aspects of international human rights, including the effects of globalisation on human rights, the question of the universality / cultural-specificity of human rights, and the so-called 'interdependence' of various human rights.

Sample Syllabus

Questions of media bias, ethics, autonomy, and freedom are crucial for the functioning of democracy and the expression of citizenship. In this context, Italy stands as both peculiar and problematic due to the intricate web of relationships that has historically tied the media and political systems. In order to shed light on these issues, the course will present a comparative perspective on media and politics in Western democracies and a thorough historical survey of sixty years of political communication in Italy, with a special emphasis on the relation between television broadcasting and democratic politics and an eye towards the evolving role of digital media. Students who take the course will be able to comprehend the most recent developments in political communication among Western democracies as well as to understand the complex media-politics nexus in Italy. Throughout the class, students will be encouraged to think critically about these issues and to apply the notions they will learn to contemporary issues such as election campaigns and international public debates.

Sample Syllabus
 

The Renaissance began and reached maturity in Italy between 1350 and 1500. This course closely examines the political, economic, and social situations in Italy during this period, emphasizing the special conditions that produced Renaissance art and literature. The relationship between culture, society, and politics is studied in the case of Florence, in which the hegemony of the Medici house and its patronage brought the city to cultural leadership in the Western world. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

Urban culture is complex, fantastic, frightening, and a part of daily life, encompassing everything from the opera to street musicians, the public library to the piazza, the theater to local cafes and social clubs. This course, where cities are considered to be sources of cultural invention, explores through literature, history, social science and student experience, the evolution of high and popular culture, both modernist and post-modern. Emphasis will be placed on how cultures create bonds between specific interest groups, and how culture becomes the arena for acting out or resolving group conflict. This course will focus on Italian cities, including Florence. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus

The course covers the evolution of Italian opera from its beginnings in Florence to the early 20th century with special emphasis on Monteverdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini. The approach is multidisciplinary and aims at a comprehensive survey of the music theatre in the context of the Italian cultural heritage. Literary sources, musico-dramatic features, vocal styles are studied in connection with major works that best represent trends and genres in the Italian operatic tradition. Students are expected to master the distinctive characteristics of such genres as favola in musica, intermezzo, opera seria, opera buffa, grand opera, dramma lirico, and the basic elements of Italian versification. Students listen to and watch recorded operas and attend performances in Florence or other Italian cities. Conducted in English

Sample Syllabus

Prerequisite: Photo I or equivalent. An analog or a digital camera with manual settings is required. This class meets both for lecture and lab.

NOTE: This course meets in the center of Florence. Student should allow for 30 minutes commute time between this class and their prior or subsequent class.

Florence can be considered the historic capital of optics: as the leading center for the production of lenses and spectacles in the Renaissance, it was also a center for extraordinary experimentation regarding the science of vision.  The experiments and writings of such masters as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Giovan Battista della Porta and Galileo, among others, are testimony to the extraordinary contributions made here to the understanding of sight and to the development of devices that aided, altered or controlled vision for artistic purpose.

This course proposes to contextualize historic photographic techniques within this rich context of the history of optics.  An invaluable resource for this exploration will be the Acton Photograph Archive at Villa La Pietra with its rich collection of stereographs, daguerrotypes, ambrotypes, silver prints and albumen prints.  Students will thus be able to learn about these historic techniques by examining firsthand surviving, in some cases extremely rare, examples of them.

Following the inspiration of these historic techniques, from the experiments of the Florentine Renaissance artists to those of the Alinari Brothers, a firm founded in Florence in the nineteenth century and renowned throughout the world as an early innovator in the uses and techniques of photography, students will have the opportunity to explore these techniques themselves hands on.  They will be encouraged to develop their individual expression through their own projects employing one or more of these historic photographic techniques.  This inspiring course on experimental photography explores new possibilities of image making by combining pinhole and toy cameras and other alternative techniques with a theoretical approach to representation.

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Perhaps no other political activity is as important for public policy in democratic (and even quasi-democratic) countries as voting and elections, which determine who the ultimate policy makers will be. Thus if we ever hope to understand why governments produce the policies they do, we have to begin by asking why people vote the way they do? Why do certain parties and candidates lose elections, while others win? How important is the economy in influencing election results? And why do some people choose not to vote at all? As democracy in its various forms spreads across the globe, more and more people are voting. In response, this course studies elections and voting as a truly international phenomenon. Topics closely related to voting and elections – such as political parties, electoral rules and systems, and partisan identification – are explored as well. Students will also use to learn political science methods based on logic and evidence to explore competing explanations for these and other questions.

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This course looks at contemporary European politics at the nation-state level. Although European countries share with the US the fact that they are (nearly!) all democracies, there are many differences in how these democracies are organized. We will get to know many varieties of democracies and analyze their specific advantages and disadvantages. This will not only make students familiar with the political environment of Europe, but also draw their attention to the particularities of the American political system.

The course topics include the territorial organization, governance, judicial systems, parliaments, cabinets,heads of state, political parties, mass media, interest groups, social movements, migration and the development of the political left and right in a comparative perspective. The main focus is on the big European democracies (Britain, France,Italy, Germany, Spain and Poland), but occasionally the small countries (Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Slovenia) can also serve as helpful examples.

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The European Union is a unique and strange entity.  It has 27 states and 500 million people. Its GNP is more or less equal to that of the USA. Many of its members share a common currency and a common monetary policy.  Yet it is a union without a state. The spectacular progress in the area of economic integration has not been matched by the creation of a common government and a common identity.  The economic giant is still a political dwarf as it has been confirmed time and again whenever there is an international crisis,. Yet so far this strange entity has been working. Its achievements in the economic arena have been remarkable. The course will analyze in an interdisciplinary fashion the making of the Union, its institutions, its policies and its prospects in the very challenging environment of today.  Probably more so than in any other period in its history the survival of the Union, as we have known it, will be tested by the impact of the most serious crisis of the post-war period.  Particular attention will be given to the new economic governance established by the Union in responding to the problems posed by the poor economic and financial performance of some of its members, i.e. the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain).. Conducted in English.

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This course explores the role of the US in Europe from the end of World War II to the present with a particular emphasis on understanding the sources of cooperation and conflict. The topics covered in the first part will include the US vision of the new international order, the end of the old European balance of power, the Cold War and the division of Europe, the building of the Western alliance, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. The second part of the course will concentrate on contemporary issues ranging from the evolution of NATO to trade relations and the role of the dollar and the euro in the international monetary system. Particular attention will also be given to the challenges posed by the ‘war on terror’, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conducted in English.

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In our society the need for deep understanding of what is going on translates into a need to keep track what has happened, how to outline trends, plan the future knowing the present or the past. We have all heard about demographic pressure, social policies, health care planning, inflation, market volatility: these are all concepts which rely heavily on statistical information. Changes have to be managed properly and in an informed way: scientific experiments be they on a medicine, on fertilizer or airbags must be planned as to ensure their validity. Total quality in production is a statistics-based philosophy of management, and if you like a commercial it is also because a statistician has provided information about consumer tastes and behaviour. In this course we will provide an introduction to the tools of statistics but most importantly we will try and understand the rationale behind statistics.

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Prerequisite for NYU Students: PSYCH-UA 1/Introduction to Psychology

How do we construct a description of physical reality based on visual sensory information? Survey of basic facts, theories, and methods of studying sensation and perception. The major emphasis is on vision and audition, although other modalities may be covered. Representative topics include receptor function and physiology; color; motion; depth; psychophysics of detection, discrimination, and appearance; perceptual constancies; adaptation, pattern recognition, and the interaction of knowledge and perception. Conducted in English.

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Prerequisite for NYU Students: PSYCH-UA 1/Introduction to Psychology

Introduction to theories and research in some major areas of cognitive psychology, including human memory, attention, language production and comprehension, thinking, and reasoning. Conducted in English. 

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Prerequisite for NYU Students: PSYCH-UA 1/Introduction to Psychology

Introduction and overview of theoretical issues and selected research in developmental psychology. Focus on infancy through adolescence. Lectures interweave theory, methods, and findings about how we develop as perceiving, thinking, and feeling beings. Conducted in English.

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Popular cultural themes and theology in the Middle Ages will be explored. We will study the shaping of the concept of witchcraft from the Canon episcopi to the bull "Super illius specula". We will go on to the Inquisition: from the repression of Catholicism to the attack of the "sect of Diana," the bull "Magnis desiderantes" (1484) and the Malleus maleficarum (1486). The foundations of the witch hunt of the 16th Century will be explored, as well as the exercise of political virtues and the divine mission of the individual. We will conclude with the decadence of religious life and of civic liberties in the second half of the century. Conducted in English.

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Consumption practices in advanced, market societies seem to have replaced the importance of productive activities in the reproduction of the social order. Consumption has tended to cover a dual role: both economic (of course) and cultural (and this is a rather newer role). The importance of consumer goods and the meaning attached to consumption processes are by now fully recognized by the social sciences as important parts in the construction of our present realities. Consumerism pervades people’s everyday lives in the developed world and generates relative deprivation phenomena throughout. However the relationship between consumption and consumerism is not self-evident. The Course intends to discuss the relationship between ‘consumption’ and ‘consumerism’ broadly following the assumption that “while consumption is an act, consumerism may be perceived as a way of life”.

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This course will introduce students to the study of criminal organizations in Italy and abroad. Analysis of real-world data over the last decades, such as court proceedings and crime statistics, dismisses many of the accepted myths about Italian mafias. We will explore the organization of mafia groups, rules and codes, activities both in legitimate business and illegal markets, and their relationship to politics. This comparative approach will help students identify those factors facilitating the emergence, migration and persistence of organized crime across countries. The course will include a review of the legislative efforts and best-practices designed to prevent and control organized crime in Italy and in the United States.

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An introduction to seeing and using drawing as a medium of expression. The problems surveyed in the studio show how the draftsperson attains knowledge of the visible world through observation, formulation, and articulation in selected drawing media. Individual independent work supports experimentation and imagination. Conducted in English.

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This course is a hands-on introduction to the translation of visual experience into painting. The interpretative, formal, expressive, and technical aspects of painting are explored through a series of studio situations. Discussions, slide lectures, and gallery visits highlight individual work. Conducted in English.

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This course uses the model to focus on problems in drawing. Students are encouraged to explore a wide range of materials and attitudes. Issues of representation and the historic use of the figure as art are covered through slides and discussions. Conducted in English.

Sample Syllabus