GLOC
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM
UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA
GLOBAL CULTURES
DIPARTIMENTO DI STORIA CULTURE CIVILTÀ
SECOND CYCLE DEGREE PROGRAMME/MASTER
GLOBAL CULTURES
AY 2016-2017
GLOC – Global Cultures
Second cycle degree program in HISTORY AND ORIENTAL STUDIES
GLOBAL CULTURES – GLOC
Global Cultures Curriculum is intended as a radically new approach to humanities. Students are invited to positively assume
the “shock of the global” that is investing our lives and societies,
abandoning the secure shores of traditional Eurocentric and statecentred approaches and methodologies and to navigate in the
whirling waters of the most innovative paths of research. Hybridization among methods and research fields, experimentation of
new forms of interaction between teachers and students, and a
strong emphasis on cross- cultural and transnational connections,
are essential element for a new critical perspective in the study of
the present and the past.
In line with new research fields such as world and global history or
post-colonial studies, Global Cultures wants to give a global outlook in the humanities. For us “global” does not mean only a particular geographical scale, nor a synonymous of “world-wide” or the label of the present as opposed to the past. More radically, it is a process of “displacement” and “disorientation” of the Eurocentrism and the “methodological nationalism” still dominant in the study of the present and
the past. Thanks to an uncommon cultural and pedagogic interaction among its teachers, it offers a truly interdisciplinary dialogue among three main research fields: history, anthropology
and critical theory. During the first year students will acquire the fundamental methodological
tools of the three fields, and the capacity to critically analyse the current dynamics of the global
age. After this strong formative year, students will be able to build individual curricula according to their main interests along three main research lines: history studies (from ancient to contemporary), non-Western cultural traditions and political and social thought.
The international character of the programme is also assured by the strong emphasis on the necessity to experiment new tools and methods of teaching, where faculty research could be more
directly available to students in the form of seminars, labs, guided individual research, etc., with
a special attention for the new opportunities offered by the increasing digitalization of humanities. The Master Degree in Global Cultures is designed for students seeking a career with an international dimension. Its interdisciplinary focus is particularly adapted for people seeking for
careers in international organizations, NGOs, industries and company with a vocation for export, media and communications, museums and cultural institutions. It will also prepare for further studies at PhD level and academic or professional careers in leading universities or other research-oriented organization in public and private sectors.
Global Cultures is a Master degree course entirely taught in English. Students are then required
for a minimum standard of English (B2 or equivalent). Selections will be made on the base of
applicants’ dossier and interviews. Perspective students are expected to be familiar with categories, instruments and languages of research in the humanities, and the ability to analyse and contextualise documents and sources. Possess critical
view and insight into the past and be aware of how
categories and problems can change according to
time and cultural concerns; awareness of processes
of change and continuities and familiarity with
comparative methods, spatial, chronological and
thematic of approaching historiographical research;
Ability to communicate orally and in writing, demonstrating the use of heuristics, reasoning and application of historiographical methods.
1
DiSCi – Department of History and Cultures
COURSE STRUCTURE
FIRST YEAR
ECTS
WORLD HISTORY (Integrated Course):
12
THEORY AND METHODOLOGY;
EUROPE IN WORLD HISTORY
OCEANIC STUDIES (Integrated Course):
ATLANTIC AND GLOBAL HISTORY OF MODERN POLITICAL CONCEPTS;
12
INDIAN OCEAN STUDIES
HISTORICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND EARLY MODERN GLOBALIZATION
6
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS MALCONTENTS (Integrated Course):
CONFLICTS AND INEQUALITIES IN THE NEOLIBERAL ERA;
12
GLOBAL HEALTH AND SUFFERING
GEOGRAPHIES OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES
6
SENIOR SEMINAR IN GLOBAL HUMANITIES
6
DIGITAL HUMANITIES: SOURCES AND METHODS
6
SECOND YEAR
ECTS
Three elective courses (6 ECTS each) among the following:
– ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY IN THE GREEK WORLD
– ROME AND THE UNIVERSAL
– CROSS-CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD;
18
– HISTORY OF CULTURAL EXCHANGES IN THE MODERN AGE;
– GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY;
– HISTORY OF COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL SPACES
One elective course (6 ECTS) among the following:
– INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL SOUTH ASIA;
– NARRATIVES ON OTHERS AND SELF IN ARAB CULTURE;
6
– COLONIALISM AND AFRICA;
– POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY ASIA.
One elective course (6 ECTS) among the following:
– CHRISTIANITY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT;
– CRITICAL THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM;
6
– FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL THOUGHT;
– GEOGRAPHY AND COGNITION OF EUROPEAN TERRITORY.
ONE ELECTIVE COURSE AMONG THOSE OFFERED AT UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA
FINAL EXAM (DISSERTATION)
6
24
2
GLOC – Global Cultures
COURSE UNITS
ATLANTIC AND GLOBAL HISTORY OF MODERN POLITICAL CONCEPTS – Raffaele Laudani
Students will acquire the fundamental methodological and theoretical tools of the socalled «Atlantic History», which redefines the spatial limits of Modern politics,
considering Europe, Africa and the Americas as part of one and the same global
experience. This perspective well developed in North American universities will be
extended to the history of political concepts, with a special attention to antagonistic
political cultures and resistance movements, but also to the colonial dimension embedded in the
great classics of Modern and contemporary political thought.
COLONIALISM AND AFRICA – Irma Taddia
The course focuses on colonialism in Africa and situates it in the framework of the
development of European imperialism. It will analyze how colonialism shaped African
political institutions and economic systems and how it changed the participation of the
continent to the global world. Forms of collaboration and resistance will be used as an
analytical tool to look at the agency of African societies in the negotiation of power
relations under colonial rule. At the end of the course, students will reach an understanding of how
the global linkages of the African continent were changed and shaped by the development of formal
European colonialism and by the establishment of asymmetrical power relations.
CONFLICTS AND INEQUALITIES IN THE NEOLIBERAL ERA – Luca Jourdan
Students will develop a critical understanding of neoliberal political-economy and its
social impacts in local contexts. Also, they will develop a critical approach to aid industry
as a key issue to understand global governance processes. They will create autonomously
a bibliography and a research project on the different issues pertaining to the course.
3
DiSCi – Department of History and Cultures
CHRISTIANITY IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT – Davide Dainese
The course will critically examine Christianity as a global religion, both in its long
historical context and in the contemporary world and it will also consider the academic,
intellectual, theological, and missiological dimensions of Christianity and its global
extension. Students will get familiar with different kinds of sources (texts, images,
movies) in a diachronic perspective. They will learn how to read them in a historical
framework. Religious and Christian ideas (e.g. confession, ecumenism) and events (e.g. wars of
religion, councils and synods), which are relevant for modern and contemporary history in a
international environment will be studied under a critical point of view.
CROSS CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN THE MEDIEVAL WORLD – Irene Bueno
The course provides an introduction on ‘global’ and cross cultural approaches to the
study of medieval history. With a special focus on the medieval Mediterranean and on
the routes to Asia from 1000 to 1500, it will explore patterns of religious, commercial,
and intellectual communication among the Latins, the East Christians, the Arabs, and
the Mongols. The discussion of phenomena, such as crusades, missions, travel, and
trade, will shed light on the actors and spaces involved and on the meaning of traversing cultural and
geographical boundaries in the medieval world.
CRITICAL THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM – Sandro Mezzadra
Through the critical review of classical theories of capitalism, the course will discuss
both fixed and invariant elements in the development of modern capitalism and what
makes peculiar its contemporary forms. Special emphasis will be given to some of the
most important concepts in present intellectual and political debate, such as
globalization, financialization, etc.
DIGITAL HUMANITIES: SOURCES AND METHODS – Carla Salvaterra
The course focuses on the profound cultural change that new tools and data bring in the
research questions. It also considers the dimension of research infrastructures developed
by collaborative platforms and collective research endeavors allowed by the digital
environment, from the point of view of the interdisciplinary integration. Special
attention is given to the role of the historical dimension within Digital Humanities
projects and infrastructures, both considering the
chronological and diachronic approaches covering the
main areas of historians’ activity.
ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY IN THE GREEK WORLD
Lucia Criscuolo
The aim of this course is to investigate,
under the light of the most recent historical
research, the political, institutional, and
social relationships among ancient peoples
and their definition of ethnic and personal
identities. These issues, investigated firstly by the Greeks
themselves, represent the conceptual as well as
terminological foundation of the current approach to
these studies. Within the global frame of the ancient times
the evolution of these concepts encourages the use of a
specific methodology which allows students to face both
ancient sources and contemporary debate through
different research approaches
4
GLOC – Global Cultures
EUROPE IN WORLD HISTORY – Marica Tolomelli
The course will illustrate some specific research paths in order to introduce students
to research techniques and methodologies, as well as to a critical use of sources and
literature. Case studies and actual research experiences, which will be presented and
discussed with students, will range on a wide series of topics drawn from migration
history, history of ideas, circulation, material exchange and consumption patterns,
global labour history, social protests, transnational mobilizations processes, power forms and
resistance strategies.
GEOGRAPHIES OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES – Elisa Magnani
The course aims at offering an analysis of some of the global challenges the population
of the planet has been facing since the second half of the 20th century. Among these, the
critical relation with the natural resources and with the concept of development and,
above all, climate change, the greatest global challenge of our age, with its connections
to territorial development, ecological risk and food security, tourism and the
consumption of natural resources. At the end of the course, the student will have acquired the
critical tools to analyse the global challenges of our society, through the acquisition of theoretical
and empirical knowledge on climate change, environmental and socio-cultural impacts of
development and tourism, the promotion and protection of biological and cultural diversity.
GLOBAL HEALTH AND SUFFERING – Ivo Quaranta
Students will develop a critical understanding of global health policy as a historical,
political and moral assemblage to deal with the consequences of global inequalities.
They will also gain an appreciation of illness and suffering as the personal embodiment
of broader social processes within local moral worlds embedded in historically deep and
geographically broad social dynamics.
GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY – Ilaria Porciani
Students will become familiar with a truly comparative and global approach to the
forces that drove global change during the “long nineteenth century.” They will
approach constitutional issues, structures and models of education, the construction
of nation-states and empires in comparative perspective, as well as the relationships
between human beings and nature and gender relations.
HISTORICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND EARLY MODERN GLOBALIZATION – Davide Domenici
The course focuses on the political, economic, and cultural European expansion in
America and the Philippines in the 16th and 17th centuries as one of the key phenomena that ignited the process of early modern globalization. The classes will tackle
early modern globalization from the perspective of historical anthropology, stressing
how the global circulation of goods, people and ideas was combined with unprecedented processes of cultural hybridization. At the end of the course the student will be able to contextualize the European conquest of America within a global historical and cultural framework, as well as to
independently engage in the critical analysis of relevant sources using the methodologies of historical
anthropology.
HISTORY OF CULTURAL EXCHANGES IN THE MODERN AGE – Maria Teresa Guerrini
The course focuses on the cultural dimension of Modern economy and society. Special
attention will be given to free and forced movements of people in relation to global
phenomena such as geographical discoveries, colonialism, and capitalist expansion. At
the end of the course students have learned the historical foundations of cultural
interactions and conflicts typical of the global age.
5
DiSCi – Department of History and Cultures
INDIAN OCEAN STUDIES – Karin Pallaver
The course focuses on the circulation of people, goods and ideas across the oceanic space
as a way to understand the connections and disconnections that created a unified system
of cultural and economic exchange. It investigates the indigenous responses to European
commercial intrusions that started in the 16th century and explores the impact of the
development of formal colonial rule in the 19th century. Students will analyze travel
accounts, novels, historical sources, and scholarly works within the historiographical debates that
characterize the Indian Ocean Studies field. They will reach an understanding of the Indian Ocean
cultures, economies and societies through a non-Eurocentric approach to processes of globalization
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIA – Saverio Marchignoli
Students will acquire high-level knowledge of intellectual transformations and history
of thought in modern and contemporary South Asia, specifically during the colonial
and post-colonial period. Students will know in depth the issue of religious and social
reforms and recognize the main theoretical positions emerged in the current debate on
the historiographical and anthropological representation of the development of South
Asian society. Students are also able to properly communicate in written and oral form what they
learned, using appropriate bibliography in view of further original research.
NARRATIVES ON OTHERS AND SELF IN ARAB CULTURE – Giuseppe Cecere
The course focuses on critical approach to notions of «identity» and «otherness»
inside the Arab World, on the grounds of varied social representations and
ideological constructions on ethnicity and «phenotypical» diversity produced by
Arab writers in different times and regions. The making and evolutions of the very
notion of «Arabicity» across the centuries will thus be analyzed from different
perspectives, relying on a wide set of Arabic sources witnessing to different and often conflicting
attitudes on supposed relations between «Arabicity» and language, religion, genealogy, ethnicity.
The course aims at providing students with a varied set of tools for proper linguistic analysis, historical contextualisation and critical deconstruction of narratives and representations connected to
the issues of «identity» and «otherness» produced within the Arab World.
ROME AND THE UNIVERSAL – Alessandro Cristofori
The course aims at examining the conceptual grounds of the Universal claim, which are
to be connected to political-military elements as well as to cultural and juridical patterns.
The roman idea of a Universal empire will be compared to other contemporary
Universal empires, like e.g. Alexander the Great's empire or the Chinese Han dynasty’s
Empire, as well as analyzed with a diachronic approach by taking into account how the
notion of universal imperial rule has shaped the idea of international order after the end of
Antiquity, from the Middle Ages to the present days. Representations and auto-representations of
the roman universal cosmic order will be explored by taking into account different approaches,
among which the historiographical perspective and the actual organisational and political patterns
will assume specific relevance.
WORLD HISTORY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY – Paolo Capuzzo
Students will face the concept of universal history centred around Europe and
Western Civilization as well as with the ways through which this narrative has been
deconstructed by means of alternative and peripheral critical stances. Lectures will
take advantage of different traditions of critical thought as cultural Marxism, antiimperialist and Afro-American thought, cultural and postcolonial studies. The
course will provide students with a sound theoretical framework within which specific reearch
interests could be developed.
6
GLOC – Global Cultures
OTHER COURSE UNITS AVAILABLE
FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL THOUGHT – TBA
At the end of the course students will acquire a knowledge of the ways in which women had historically criticized the theoretical justification of their subordination articulated in Western political
and social thought. By applying the fundamental tools of feminist and post-colonial theories, the
course will provide an historical analysis of political and social concepts – such as authority,
freedom, rights, citizenship, society, labor – as the expression of gendered relations of power.
FEMINIST THEORY: BETWEEN DIFFERENCE AND DIVERSITY – Rita Monticelli
The course will analyse critical theories and methodologies of gender in dialogue with diverse
feminism(s), African American and postcolonial studies and engage in the critical debates on the
representation and deconstruction of the notion of gender and “difference” in diverse cultural contexts.
The course will also present case studies on the issue of gender, identity, difference, “race”, and politics
of the body in which texts (literary and visual) are in dialogue with the theories and methodologies of
gender studies previously discussed with specific reference to utopian and dystopian fiction.
GEOGRAPHY AND COGNITION OF EUROPEAN TERRITORY – Franco Farinelli
Starting from the history of the idea of Europe, the course aims to explain the nature and the logic
of European space and landscapes in their geographical, cultural and cognitive roots. The course
brings critical perspectives from humanities and from economics to bear in considering how Europe
as a set of new transnational policy spaces is making a difference to Europe as a myriad of lived,
experienced, meaningful, crucial places.
HISTORY OF COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL SPACES – TBA
The course intends to provide a critical and interdisciplinary analysis of the policy and ideology of
European colonial expansion between the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the outbreak of the
First World War, a period characterized by unprecedented competition for overseas territorial
acquisitions and the emergence in colonising countries of doctrines of racial superiority. Students
will acquire a top-down and a bottom-up perspective on the process of ‘simplification’ registered in
colonial contexts and will be required to adopt a comparative approach that takes on board the
Middle East and other geographical contexts directly affected by colonial rule and conflicts,
including and particularly African countries and India.
POLITICS OF CONTEMPORARY ASIA – Antonio Fiori
The main objective of this course is to provide the necessary tools to critically analyze the most
important international issues in Pacific Asia. At the end of the course students will be able to analyze
and understand a set of topics related to historical and contemporary patterns of state relations in
East Asia, US security alliance in East Asia and the new Asian Pivot, the rise of China, nuclear crisis in
the Korean Peninsula, territorial disputes, regional multilateral institutions, East Asian development
models and economic integration, environmental challenges, energy security, and other related issues.
SEMIOTICS OF CONFLICTS – Cristina Demaria
The course aims at giving the students an understanding of conflict and post-conflict situations as semiotic and cultural phenomena, with a particular focus on the role of cinema and documentary in the
building of cultural and collective memories, post-memories and prosthetic memories of contemporary
conflicts. At the end of the course the student will have achieved the necessary tools to critically elaborate
the main themes and aspects relating to conflict and post-conflict cultures in a semiotic perspective.
7
DiSCi – Department of History and Cultures
FACULTY
IRENE BUENO
RAFFAELE LAUDANI
irene.bueno@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7808
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/irene.bueno
raffaele.laudani@unibo.it
+30 0512097659
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/raffaele.laudani
PAOLO CAPUZZO – Academic coordinator
ELISA MAGNANI
paolo.capuzzo@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7641
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/paolo.capuzzo
e.magnani@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7456
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/e.magnani
GIUSEPPE CECERE
SAVERIO MARCHIGNOLI
giuseppe.cecere3@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8473
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/giuseppe.cecere3
saverio.marchignoli@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8470
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/saverio.marchignoli
LUCIA CRISCUOLO
SANDRO MEZZADRA
lucia.criscuolo@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8391
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/lucia.criscuolo
sandro.mezzadra@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 2548
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/sandro.mezzadra
ALESSANDRO CRISTOFORI
RITA MONTICELLI
alessandro.cristofori@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8110
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/alessandro.cristofori
rita.monticelli@unibo.it
tel +39 051 20 9 7225
https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/rita.monticelli
DAVIDE DAINESE
KARIN PALLAVER
davide.dainese@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7653
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/davide.dainese
karin.pallaver@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8449
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/karin.pallaver
DAVIDE DOMENICI
ILARIA PORCIANI
davide.domenici@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8445
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/davide.domenici
ilaria.porciani@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7660
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/ilaria.porciani
FRANCO FARINELLI
IVO QUARANTA
franco.farinelli@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 2229 • +39 051 20 9 2215
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/franco.farinelli
ivo.quaranta@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8446
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/ivo.quaranta
ANTONIO FIORI
CARLA SALVATERRA
antonio.fiori@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 2555
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/antonio.fiori
carla.salvaterra@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 8361
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/carla.salvaterra
MARIA TERESA GUERRINI
IRMA TADDIA
mariateresa.guerrini@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7693
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/mariateresa.guerrini
irma.taddia@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7674
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/irma.taddia
LUCA JOURDAN
MARICA TOLOMELLI
luca.jourdan@unibo.it
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/luca.jourdan
marica.tolomelli@unibo.it
+39 051 20 9 7627
www.unibo.it/sitoweb/marica.tolomelli
8
DiSCi – Department of History and Cultures
School of Arts Humanities and Cultural Heritage
Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna
AY 2016-2017
Second cycle degree program/Master in History and Oriental studies
GLOBAL CULTURES – GLOC
Academic coordinator: Paolo Capuzzo
Contacts: Antonio Schiavulli
E-mail: antonio.schiavulli@unibo.it
Phone: +39 051 209 7666
Skype: globalcultures15