Highlights from Fall 2014 Term

The leaves have fallen, the tides have risen now and again, and the participants of the Fall 2014 term are flying on to the final exam week on the wings of the sirocco…

Since 8 September 2014, 134 students of 23 different nationalities coming from the member universities of VIU have been attending courses taught by 20 distinguished professors.
Besides core courses on Italy, Cultures of the World and Global Challenges, the fall term has focused on Economics, Management and Digital Technologies applied to Cultural Heritage. This specialization track gives students with a background in the Humanities the opportunity to acquire skills that will be useful in developing careers in this field. Additional courses based on common principles of research through parallelisms and complementarities have enriched the range of educational possibilities on interdisciplinary themes such as comparative history, fashion and modernity, Japan in translation, or revolution and social transformation, and non-Italian students have improved their interaction with everyday life in Venice thanks to the Italian as a foreign  language course.

Watch the video presentation of Fall 2014 courses!

Open Lectures

The Hon. Stefania Giannini, Italian Minister of Education, Universities and Research, inaugurated the season’s academic activities with a lectio magistralis about Internationalization in Higher Education delivered during the opening ceremony. Other guest speakers were invited to debate interesting, topical issues in the VIULECTURES series, an initiative promoted by VIU and open to the public: Wim Blockmans, Professor Emeritus at Leiden University, discussed with prof. Mikhail Krom the origins of the modern State in Europe, seeking to provide a better understanding of the present tension between the traditional longing to belong and ongoing world-wide globalization; Prof. Franca Bimbi, of the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology (FISPPA) at Padua University, was invited by prof. Luca Trappolin to present and discuss her study on Symbolic Violence: Reshaping Post-Patriarchal Discourses on Gender; whereas the United Nations official Filippo Grandi, former Commissioner-General of the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees), talked about his personal experience in refugee and humanitarian work and about the difficulties that donors and NGO associations face during their missions of assistance and advocacy.

Internships and mobility

VIU promotes international mobility by providing internship opportunities and scholarships to students of the member universities who attend the Globalization Program. During the Fall 2014 term, 10 candidates competed to carry out research for their final master’s thesis through the international mobility channels offered by VIU, while 16 candidates applied for an internship in one of the agreed host institutions in Italy.
The 6 winners of the scholarship for an internship experience in Italy will be announced during the Closing Ceremony of the Fall 2014 term!

Former students who have already benefited of this opportunity share their testimony and suggestions in these video interviews.

Co-curricular program

Not just academic duties, but also an opportunity for travel, discoveries and funny moments: the Globalization Program offers a calendar of co-curricular activities, proposed by the professors or by VIU staff: an opportunity to discover and relate to the city of Venice, the lagoon and the Veneto region, taking teaching out of the classroom and into the field, and creating opportunities for students to socialize with their peers. The 30 activities in the program included site visits related to the courses, tours of cultural sites of interest, a weekly movie series, a midterm trip to Rome and Florence and a ski-weekend: have a look at this semester’s photo gallery!

The School of Humanities and Social Sciences thanks all participants for this intense semester!

The Spring 2015 program is already boiling up… stay tuned!
Registration for courses, procedures and admission requirements available here.