VIRTUAL ROME CAMPUS COURSES SUMMER 2022

This Summer 2022, our Rome Campus faculty are offering a selection of their courses taught remotely from Rome! If your study away plans are in the works or you are currently abroad, you want to start studying Italian or you are considering studying at our Rome Campus during a future semester, these virtual courses from Rome are an amazing and unique way to be introduced to the city of Rome and our faculty. Courses are open to all Trinity Undergraduate students.

Designed to develop a basic ability to read, write, understand, and speak Italian. Since all linguistic skills cannot be fully developed in 101 alone, stress will be placed on the acquisition of basic structures, which it will the function of 102 to develop and reinforce. Students who wish to acquire significant proficiency should therefore plan to take 101 and 102 in sequence. Other than beginning students must have permission of instructor to enroll. Prof. Ivana Rinaldi

Continuation of 101, emphasizing oral practice, consolidation of basic grammar skills, compositions and reading comprehension. Prof. Angela Lavecchia

This course will take a detailed look at the Holocaust principally from an Italian perspective. Through a combination of class lectures and discussions, film screenings and readings, students will be able to connect decisions taken in Fascist Italy with the end result of forced labour and mechanised killing. In doing so they will gain knowledge of pre-Fascist and Fascist Italy’s relationship with its Jewish population, the repressive nature of the dictatorship, its involvement in the Second World War and its alliance with Nazi Germany to gain a thorough grounding in how scholars have sought to explain Italy’s Holocaust. Having established the processes and practicalities by which Jews in Italy were rounded-up and deported from occupied Italy, students will reflect upon debates surrounding guilt and how this has been used to excuse or deflect responsibility for the deportation and murder of religious and political prisoners. Instruction will consist of a series of online lectures and class debates around assigned readings, film and literature. Throughout the duration of course we shall be reading and discussing Primo Levi’s account of his experience of surviving Auschwitz in If this is a Man. Providing a solid grounding in Italy’s role in the Holocaust, the course will also introduce students to how memory of this particular event has been/is constructed, used and abused for political means. Prof. Simon Martin

This course focuses on the role of love and sexuality in the everyday life in Ancient Rome. Exploration of selected readings (Ovid, Horace, Petronius, Catullus, Juvenal and other authors) concentrates on the representation of women, family, children and slaves during the last decades of Republican Rome and the imperial times. The questions of gender identity and views on homosexuality, prostitution, female and male seduction are considered. Finally, the course brings together instructions for finding love and love-making found in the text and the existing ancient roman topography. Prof. Danica Pušić

This course studies the historical events that transformed the Mediterranean world from the “Fall of Rome” to rise of Islamic rule in the Eastern Mediterranean (3rd-8th cent. AD). It will be based upon archaeological and literary sources and give the students an insight into the complex geo-political developments that redefined the political, religious, economic and cultural relations in the region, with particular regard for the events in Italy, Constantinople, Western Europe, Northern Africa and the Near East. The course will further address the forced cohabitation between Romans, Germanic populations, Byzantines and Arabs as well as the consequences of that cohabitation upon their physical environment, namely the cities, and their transformation over time. The course includes a three day academic excursion to Milan, Brescia and Ravenna. Prof. Jan Gadeyne

This course is organized around a series of controversies regarding the European Union. The EU has become the world’s largest market, with over 500 million people. It is unique in world history in creating a form of government across 27 nation states without military conquest or force. It has become an economic, diplomatic and arguably a political actor at a superpower level, though militarily it remains less important. What is Europe exactly? How far can it or should it expand? Is Europe Christian, Secular, Liberal, Socialist? Who else should join – Turkey, Russia, Israel, North African countries? Is the European Social Model an alternative to American Free Market policies? Can it Survive Globalization? Can Europe replace the US a leader of the West? How does the EU work-is it really democratic? If so, how do the citizens of 27 countries influence their continental governmental bodies? Who is in charge and how do the institutions of Europe work? Is the Euro the future reserve money for the world economy, replacing the dollar? Students who complete ROME 327 may not earn credit for POLS 337. Prof. Eszter Salgo

This course explores how the realm of international politics is visually constructed and how images, films, graffiti, sculptures, monuments, and buildings shape public perception. It uses a multidisciplinary approach and relies on cultural theory, anthropology, political science, and art theory to provide students with a theoretical framework. Case studies will focus on the functions that visual sources perform in international conflicts and in strategies addressing global challenges such as poverty, famine, human rights, refugee crises, climate change and racism. Overall, the course develops students’ analytical skills related to the critical assessment of visual information and encourages them to challenge their thoughts about factors driving world politics. Prof. Eszter Salgo

This course will investigate the migratory experience in Italy. In addition to more recent attention to the so called “migration crisis” in Italy, which has represented a unique and unprecedented case, Italy has had an important historical relationship with migration and issues related to migration (mobility, citizenship rights, border crossing). The course will explore the historical background of Italy as a country of emigration and will end with an analysis of the current condition of Italy as a country of immigration. This journey shall be experience through the narration of different experiences that characterize the complex contemporary identity of Italy and its inhabitants: Italians abroad, Roma and Sinti, postcolonial citizens, historical migrant enclaves, the presence of refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants. Prof. Giulia Casentini