Updated A.Y. 2020-2021

Course Description

This course is a study of globalization with a special focus on Rome, its cultural complexity and diversity. It offers the students local perspectives on globalization as it offers global perspectives on urban contexts. The intertwined processes of globalization and localization will be addressed via an in-depth study of urban settings (especially Rome and Venice) and the social, cultural, political, demographic and economic transformations the world is currently going through. From a more general perspective, the course will introduce the concept of “global cities” and discuss global city theory. The course will introduce Rome and Venice via a diversity of topical prisms: immigration, neighbourhood formations, ethnicity, tourism, popular culture, youth culture, religious identities, food and identity, etc. The course has an explicit aim to force students to recognize and value local particularities in a globalizing world, but also to understand these particularities less as relics of the past for the tourist to gaze at, and more like dynamic and ongoing adaptations to the centrifugal forces of globalization. Within this general frame, the course aims at training students to watch at cities not only as immobile spaces with a cherished past, but also a vivid locations going towards their future.

In this respect a secondary aim of the course is to allow students to critically assess the economic theory of the global city and to integrate it with a more complex perspective based not only on economics, but also on political science, sociology and cultural anthropology. Cultural aspects of globalization are indeed central to urban contexts and more relevant to their current development than strictly economic factors.

The student will be asked to think about his or her own cultural backgrounds, to develop an analytic stance toward identity and power in the world today, to compare Rome and Venice to other urban settings in the World, and to learnedly discuss the global and local forces that shape his/her own life. Pre-requisites for the course: none.

Find more information in the Syllabus

Updated A.Y. 2019-2020

Course Description
This course is a study of globalization with a special focus on Rome, its cultural complexity and diversity. It offers the students local perspectives on globalization as it offers global perspectives on urban contexts. The intertwined processes of globalization and localization will be addressed via an indepth study of urban settings (especially Rome and Venice) and the social, cultural, political, demographic and economic transformations the world is currently going through. From a more general perspective, the course will introduce the concept of “global cities” and discuss global city theory. The course will introduce Rome and Venice via a diversity of topical prisms: immigration, neighborhood formations, ethnicity, tourism, popular culture, youth culture, religious identities, food and identity, etc. The course has an explicit aim to force students to recognize and valorize local particularities in a globalizing world, but also to understand these particularities less as relics of the past for the tourist to gaze at, and more like dynamic and ongoing adaptations to the centrifugal forces of globalization. Within this general frame, the course aims at training students to watch at cities not only as immobile spaces with a cherished past, but also a vivid locations going towards their future.
In this respect a secondary aim of the course is to allow students to critically assess the economic theory of the global city and to integrate it with a more complex perspective based not only on economics, but also on political science, sociology and cultural anthropology.  Cultural aspects of globalization are indeed central to urban contexts and more relevant to their current development than strictly economic factors.
The student will be asked to think about his or her own cultural backgrounds, to develop an analytic stance toward identity and power in the world today, to compare Rome and Venice to other urban settings in the World, and to learnedly discuss the global and local forces that shape his/her own life. Pre-requisites for the course: none.

Teaching Method
Lecture in class with some elements of PBS (Problem Based Learning) on the assigned readings. Once the class shall be taken “on the field”, visiting the Sanctuary of the Divine Love to discuss about the process of globalization in the city of Rome. So the course combines three teaching methodologies: lecture, PBS and fieldwork. Discussion in class will be used from time to time to check students’ reading work.

Schedule of Topics
Topic 1 What is culture?
Topic 2 What is globalization of culture?
Topic 3 Urban development
Topic 4 Migration and the city (refugees)
Topic 5 Religion and globalization (Islam and Judaism)
Topic 6 Roman Catholicism
Topic 7 Global and local tourism
Topic 8 Housing issue and squats

Note: Changes in course plan may occur and will be announced in class. A routinely updated online version of the plan shall be available to students as soon as they confirm their participation. See my blog at pierovereni.blogspot.com for up-to-date course plan.

 

PLEASE FIND MORE INFORMATION ON THE COURSE ON THE SYLLABUS IN THE TEACHING MATERIAL SECTION

Updated A.Y. 2018-2019

Course Description
This course is a study of globalization with a special focus on Rome, its cultural complexity and diversity. It offers the students local perspectives on globalization as it offers global perspectives on urban contexts. The intertwined processes of globalization and localization will be addressed via an in-depth study of urban settings (especially Rome and Venice) and the social, cultural, political, demographic and economic transformations the world is currently going through. From a more general perspective, the course will introduce the concept of “global cities” and discuss global city theory. The course will introduce Rome and Venice via a diversity of topical prisms: immigration, neighborhood formations, ethnicity, tourism, popular culture, youth culture, religious identities, food and identity, etc. The course has an explicit aim to force students to recognize and valorize local particularities in a globalizing world, but also to understand these particularities less as relics of the past for the tourist to gaze at, and more like dynamic and ongoing adaptations to the centrifugal forces of globalization. Within this general frame, the course aims at training students to watch at cities not only as immobile spaces with a cherished past, but also a vivid locations going towards their future.
In this respect a secondary aim of the course is to allow students to critically assess the economic theory of the global city and to integrate it with a more complex perspective based not only on economics, but also on political science, sociology and cultural anthropology.  Cultural aspects of globalization are indeed central to urban contexts and more relevant to their current development than strictly economic factors.
The student will be asked to think about his or her own cultural backgrounds, to develop an analytic stance toward identity and power in the world today, to compare Rome and Venice to other urban settings in the World, and to learnedly discuss the global and local forces that shape his/her own life.
Pre-requisites for the course: none.

Teaching Method
Lecture in class with some elements of PBS (Problem Based Learning) on the assigned readings. Twice the class shall be taken “on the field”, visiting some parts of Rome and talking to the local dwellers. So the course combines three teaching methodologies: lecture, PBS and fieldwork. Discussion in class will be used from time to time to check students’ reading work.

Schedule of Topics
Topic 1 What is culture?
Topic 2 What is globalization of culture?
Topic 3 Urban development
Topic 4 Migration and the city (refugees)
Topic 5 Religion and globalization (Islam and Judaism)
Topic 6 Roman Catholicism
Topic 7 Global and local tourism
Topic 8 Housing issue and squats

Note: Changes in course plan may occur and will be announced in class. A routinely updated online version of the plan shall be available to students as soon as they confirm their participation. See my blog at pierovereni.blogspot.com for up-to-date course plan.

 

PLEASE FIND MORE INFORMATION ON THE COURSE ON THE SYLLABUS IN THE TEACHING MATERIAL SECTION

Updated A.Y. 2017-2018

https://economia.uniroma2.it/public/gobalGov/files/Anthropology_of_Globalization_syllabus_2018-19_2_.pdf