WORLD CULTURAL HERITAGE: VENICE AND BEYOND

This course aims to introduce students to the methods and tools of analysis in history and heritage studies by using the city of Venice and the surrounding islands as a hands-on learning lab. By combining regular class sections with on-site training in different locations (museums, churches, public spaces, archaeological sites), Venice will be experienced as a lens through which different world cultures have been perceived across time. In fact, Venice may be considered as a uniquely cosmopolitan melting pot that combined a historical past rooted in the Classical and Byzantine traditions with multiple influences, spanning from the Islamic world to the Far East and beyond.

Students will learn to deal with a wide range of interdisciplinary sources (both textual and visual) and will be invited to work individually or in groups on selected topics related to the course.

No prior knowledges are required.

The course will take into consideration all periods of Venetian history, from the rise of Venice as a local settlement, to the time when it became a leading Mediterranean power, and, later, an iconic travel destination in the 19th and 20th centuries. History and cultural heritage will be approached as subjective cultural phenomena that stimulate multiple individual reactions and require a critical discourse to be fully understood.

Specific literature will be provided in class by the course instructor.

Class participation: 20%
Readings and short individual presentations: 20%
Final presentations (couples or groups): 30%
Final paper: 30%

Classroom sections and onsite classes in and around Venice (museum, churches, etc.).

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Cities, infrastructure and social capital" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development