93540 - Current Affairs Laboratory (LM)

Learning outcomes

The lab aims  to offer the student tools to analyze national and international politics through the analysis of individual cases. At the end of the course the student: - masters the analysis of a case study; - can analyze cases of international politics; - can apply knowledge in content production; - is able to investigate the news.

Course contents

The lab in Current affairs  will be divided each week into a lecture on current affairs or on topics of a historical nature that always have a link to the present time and a workshop session in which a sort of course rehash will be prepared with the writing of articles. The aim is to train students to deal with and write about complex national and international topics through the identification of issues, the use of scientific literature and sources.
Each lecture meeting includes one hour of lecture, one hour of discussion with the lecturer and one hour of content work with the lecturer in charge of the workshop. During this time and the following session, the topics to be developed at home will be discussed, as well as the criteria for planning and layout of what will be the course journal produced with student texts.

The final schedule will be made public at the beginning of the second semester. In order to get an idea of the topics, students are suggested to consult the 2023/24 programme for now.

Experts in editorial and editorial work are expected to participate in the workshop part.

Readings/Bibliography

teacher could assign preparatory readings

Teaching methods

Each meeting will be characterised by a one-hour lecture by the invited lecturer or course holder followed by a one-hour discussion with the lecturer and a final hour of workshop activity. The practical part of the workshop will consist of discussion on the organisation of the course journal and the writing of articles on current affairs.

Some topics that will be covered in the course will be the changing international geopolitical balance, the crisis of democracy, the Russian-Ukrainian war, neo-nationalism and populism. An expert in the field of journalism will also be invited. For organisational reasons, the list of lectures will be made available at the beginning of the second semester.

Assessment methods

he students will write in the first two weeks initially a summary of the contents of each lesson attended. Subsequently, each week the participants will be assigned to write a 5000-word text on one of the topics covered that will be included in the course magazine.Part of the work will be done in the classroom.

At the end of the workshop, the students will compose the course magazine, taking care of its layout and form, and write a final in-depth article of 8000 characters on a topic assigned by the lecturer.

The course topics and the final paper will be discussed in the final oral examination.

Please note: students who for well-founded reasons are unable to participate continuously in the workshop and/or editorial composition may alternatively request to write a 30,000-word paper on a topic assigned by the lecturer.

Students who cannot attend the workshop for justified reasons should contact the lecturer.

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Students with SLD or temporary or permanent disabilities. It is necessary to contact the relevant University office (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en) with ample time in advance: the office will propose some adjustments, which must in any case be submitted at least 15 days in advance to the lecturer, who will assess the appropriateness of these in relation to the teaching objectives.

Teaching tools

beamer and other audio-visual tools

Links to further information

https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/stefano.cavazza/

Office hours

See the website of Stefano Cavazza