Rome Center Partnering With Fulbright College to Deliver Summer Courses

Looking for a way to visit Rome this summer…virtually, of course?

The university’s Rome Center is partnering with the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the International and Global Studies Program in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences to offer unique hybrid courses that let students tour the city virtually while learning from faculty on location.

Offered in the first 5-week summer session, May 26-June 26, the course WLLC 398V From Rome With Love will virtually introduce students to the multifaceted history, culture and civilization packaged into just one city. The Roman journey will cover some survival Italian language to integrate students with the community and will feature interactive visits to popular monuments and museums in Rome, all from the comfort of your own home.

The course will be led by faculty member Barbara Spaccini with the participation of several other faculty, who are on location at the Rome Center, in collaboration with faculty from the university’s world languages department.

“Our faculty will serve as personal tour guides throughout the course, taking students around the city, into museums and historic sites, just as if they were experiencing the city in person,” said Rome Center director Francesco Bedeschi. “For weeks we have been preparing to offer this highly interactive course, giving students the closest thing we can to actually experiencing Rome.”

Topics in the course include:

Unit One: Italian Language — Prepares students for some basic Italian to help with daily topics like salutations, ordering in a restaurant, and purchasing tickets for the train.

Unit Two: Arts — Explores the impressive collection of art in Rome from Antiquities to the present with a focus on the artistic masters of the Renaissance (Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci).

Unit Three: Foodways — In Italy, si mangia sempre bene (one always eats well). Students will learn about how Italians eat, why they adopt certain diets (like the famous Mediterranean diet), and the Slow Food movement.

Unit Four: Politics & Contemporary Rome — Evaluate the political make-up of the Italian government and Italy’s economic role within the European Union with a focus on contemporary issues affecting the country from migration to mafia.

Unit Five: Fashion and Design — Italy is one of the top fashion centers in the world with a unique approach to design and production. Learn about what makes Italian fashion elegant and its role in the concept of “Made in Italy.” Students will virtually explore fashion-related architectural spaces with cultural and historic value for the city.

During the second summer session, June 29-July 31, Rome Center faculty member Camillia Lai is partnering with the university’s International and Global Studies Program to offer INST 2813 Introduction to International Relations and Global Studies. This is a new course that applies to the International and Global Studies major, the Global Studies minor, and is approved to meet the state minimum core for a social science course.

INST 2813 includes an interdisciplinary survey of globalization, international relations theory, conflict and peace studies, and contemporary global issues. Lai will introduce students to the many European and international organizations that have headquarters in Rome. An honors section is also offered for this course.

​A version of this story also appeared in the U of A’s Newswire publication.