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Category Archives: E.C.Co. courses
Intensive Italian for Academic Purposes
Language and Culture Ivan Tassi
The Intensive Course of Italian Language and Culture is the first step of your university experience in Italy. It is mandatory, starts soon after your arrival in Bologna and ends when the E.C.Co. and the UniBo courses start. The Intensive Course lasts three weeks.
This course gives you the opportunity to get to know the city of Bologna through a total language and cultural immersion. The topics – the Middle Ages, Italian Opera and the Bologna Resistance – are introduced in their historical, artistic, and linguistic contexts both in class and during guided tours. The course also includes a review and practice of grammar structures.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Fall, Spring
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History of Science in Italy from the Late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment
History of Science Syllabus Gian Mario Cao

Museum Palazzo Poggi – Bologna
This course traces the history of Western science from the late Middle Ages to the scientific revolution from an Italian perspective. It aims to account for the transformations of scientific discourse over nearly six centuries by integrating the traditional narrative of epoch-making discoveries and advances with an exploration of the contexts within which science was not only practiced and disseminated, but also criticized and opposed.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Fall
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Renaissance and Early Baroque Art in Bologna: From Vitale da Bologna to Domenichino and Guido Reni
History of Art Syllabus Elisabetta Cunsolo
The rich artistic patrimony of Bologna is a powerful testament to the city’s great cultural importance over the centuries. Due to its favorable location, as well as to the presence of its ancient and distinguished university, Bologna has always been recognized for its great geo-political importance as a place from which many new ideas were diffused throughout the Apennine peninsula and beyond. Often threatened from the outside and occasionally conquered, the city distinguished itself by its desire to remain autonomous and by the development of a unique artistic school indebted to the various north Italian models.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Fall
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Life in Comedy
Theatre Syllabus Prof. Gabriele Marchesini
The course takes a general approach to acting styles, providing a direct and in-depth involvement with the Italian language as it mediates between the theory and the practice of theatrical literature, a literature conceived as a recited art rather than as one to be read. This way, we approach the theatre as protagonists, rather than simply practicing our knowledge of another language and culture. Following a series of lectures on the theory of theatre, we will move into readings and analyses of a text or several texts by a chosen author (the selections will depend on the number and gender of participants). Next, we will memorize lines and rehearse in the theater itself to prepare for the final performance. The goal of the course is not to present an entire play, but rather to create a seminar-laboratory type of atmosphere in which to learn individual roles and focus on the interaction with the group. Given that this is a very intense course, student participants must commit to coming to all class meetings.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Spring
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The Pathos of the Body in Nineteenth-Century Italian Literature
Italian Literature Syllabus Vanessa Pietrantonio
In the first half of the nineteenth century, some European writers opted to avoid realistic descriptions in favor of images that were hallucinatory, ambiguous, murky, vague, or misshapen. Such images were often housed in infinite or incomplete spaces, in places where horrors were depicted by grotesque figures, painful grimaces, or decomposing bodies. Illustrious authors such as Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles Dickens, to name a few, were all part of this strain of writing, which also included the Italian writers Alessandro Manzoni, Giacomo Leopardi, and Giovanni Verga.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Fall, Uncategorized
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To Read a City: Urban History of Bologna since the Medieval Period
Urban Studies/History of Architecture Syllabus Francesco Ceccarelli
Based on the study of selected Italian cities in the north-central region, the goal of this course is to provide the tools to identify the historical and urban factors that have shaped the region Emilia-Romagna and its urban centers, primarily Bologna. Thanks to its well-preserved ancient historical center, Bologna lends itself to being read as a case study for understanding the city’s spatial organization, its architecture and the palimpsestual layering of the buildings constituting its patrimony. The course will alternate between a series of classroom lectures dedicated to the comprehension of diverse evolutionary phases of construction, and site visits to different aspects of Bologna’s urban fabric.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Spring
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Modern Italian Art: 1860-2000
History of Art Syllabus Lucia Corrain
The goal of the course is to trace a path through Italian artistic production, with a chronological span encompassing the second half of the nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth century. The focus on Italy will be presented in close relationship with European and extra-European experiences, as contemporary art is not confined to a single geographic location. Examined in a way that reveals their close interrelationship, the guiding threads of the course are two: the first has to do with history and the chronological evolution of artistic changes and transformations; … Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Spring, Uncategorized
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Cinematic Landscapes: Emilia-Romagna in the Films and Works of the Great Directors
Film Studies Syllabus Piero Di Domenico
Italian cinema has always been concerned with landscapes, including the films of directors as Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Bernardo Bertolucci. These filmmakers, whose formative experiences took place while filming Emilia-Romagna, made its landscapes memorable in films like Visconti’s Ossessione (and its depiction of the ‘bassa ferrarese’) or the last episode of Rossellini’s Paisà (set in the delta of the Po river). This course centers on the filmed landscape that takes on the status of character (whether protagonist or antagonist) in a dozen films directed by filmmakers from Emilia-Romagna and which stretch from the post-WWII period to today.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Spring
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From Page to Stage and Back Again
Theater and Italian Society Syllabus Paolo Rota
Students will explore the offerings in theaters in Bologna and possibly in other cities. This course helps prepare students for the performances of specific plays that are on in Bologna in the Spring semester. The course unfolds in three discrete steps that correspond to its title: (1) study and discussion in the classroom of the dramatic text (if one exists, for the performance; if not, a text in relation to the subject of the performance); (2) field trips to the theater; and (3) evaluation of the performance through classroom discussion and writing assignments.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Fall
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Writing Workshop
Language and Culture Ivan Tassi
Soon after the Intensive Course of Italian Language and Culture, we will start the nine-week Writing Workshop, along with the E.C.Co and UniBo courses. This course is organized in two parts. In the first one, we read and discuss texts of various genres (stories, novels, essays) with particular attention to improve students’ oral skills. The reading is supported by workshops, with the purpose to write weekly essays on different topics (literature, art, history, cinema). In each class, we develop specific grammar and lexical topics linked to the reading texts in order to improve students’ oral and written skills.… Continue reading
Posted in E.C.Co. courses, Fall, Spring
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