27280 - Seminars (1) (G.C)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the seminar students will be able to interpret issues related to specific historical phenomena in a diachronic and transversal perspective, thought the elaboration and synthesis of the data coming from the analysis of written records and material sources and from the collective debate originated from the contact with other people. They will be able to formulate autonomously and in an organized way a research path or an intellectual work, using the specific acquired tools with methodological rigour, precision and accuracy.

Course contents

 The seminar will focus on the nexus between space and politics at different moments in modern and contemporary history. Students will have the opportunity to engage with some of the most recent lines of research through a direct confrontation with a number of scholars who, from different perspectives, have been working on this topic at a specialised level in recent years, and who will be invited to discuss their work during the seminar.

After some introductory sessions on political spaces and the spatial foundations of modern politics, the seminar will consider

a) the spatial revolution of the early modern age and its consequences for political thought, through the example of some authors of the period;

b) Tocqueville's, Beaumont's and Marx's reflections on the space of the American frontier;

c) the problem of the domestic space and its relation to the public space;

d) the specificity of colonial, post-colonial and imperial political spaces;

e) the spatial transformations of the global age, with particular emphasis on the reinterpretation of the imperial dimension, the ecological challenge and the new spatialities produced by the advent of digital technologies, platform capitalism and logistics.

 

Program

September 16, 2024 - 3 p.m., Aula Specola

Carlo Galli (University of Bologna) - Space and politics. Historical and contemporary transformations

 

September 17, 2024 - 3 p.m., Aula Specola

Raffaele Laudani (University of Bologna) - The Spatial Foundation of Modern Sovereignty, between sea and land

 

September 23-24, 2024 - 3 p.m., Aula Specola

Antonio Del Vecchio (University of Bologna) - The Spatial Revolutions of the Early-Modern Age and Their Implications for Political Thought

 

September 30, 2024, 3. p.m., Aula Specola

Silvia Rodeschini (University of Florence) - The Domestic and the Political

 

October 1-2, 2024, 3 p.m., Aula Specola

Anna Guerini (University of Bologna) - The Frontier as a Political Space

 

October 7 , 5 p.m., Aula Gambi

Isabella D'Angelo (University of Bologna) - Colonial and Post-colonial spaces

 

October 8, 3 p.m., Aula Specola

Open discussion

 

October 9, 2024, 5 p.m., Aula Seminari 2

Matilde Cazzola (Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt) - Rethinking an Empire in Crisis. The Origins of World State in the British Political Thought

 

October 14, 2024, 3 p.m., Aula Specola 

Elia Zaru (University of Bologna) - Empire: Space and Politics in the 20th century

 

October 15, 2024, 3 p.m., Aula Specola

Jacopo Bonasera (University of Bologna) - Global Modernity and Ecological Challenge

 

October 16, 2024, 5 p.m., Aula Seminari 2

Niccolò Cuppini (SUPSI) - Algorithmic spaces

 

October 22, 2024, 3 p.m., Aula Specola 

Sandro Mezzadra (University of Bologna) - Towards a Global War Regime? Capital and Power in the Crisis of the World System

 

October 23, 2024, 3. p.m., Aula Specola

Final discussion with the participants 

 

 

Readings/Bibliography

The following publications can be used by the students as common basic texts in order to be prepared for the first meetings:

- C. Galli, Spazi Politici. L’età moderna e l’età globale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2001.

- R. Laudani, Mare e terra. Sui fondamenti spaziali della sovranità moderna, «Filosofia Politica», n. 3/2015, pp: 513-532.

- S. Mezzadra – B. Neilson, Operazioni del capitale, Roma, Manifestolibri, 2020, cap. III “Capitale, Stato, Impero”, pp. 133-186.

- S. Chignola, La storia dei concetti alla prova del mondo globale. «Punto di vista», temporalità, spazializzazione, «Filosofia politica», n. 3/2020, pp. 517-534.

 

Further bibliographical references will be made available during the seminar, both in relation to the specific topics of the seminar sessions and to the specific issues related to participants' final papers.

Teaching methods

The meetings will include moments of frontal exposition of the issues presented by the different speakers as well as moments of collective discussion. Students will be encouraged to take an active part during the seminars, to make appropriate comments and questions, and to develop their own contributions in preparing and eventually discussing their final papers.

Assessment methods

The credits for this activity cannot be obtained as non-attending students.
In order to receive credits for the seminar, students must attend a minimum of 24 hours out of 30. Attendance will be recorded by signature.

Each participant will also have to write a short paper (approximately 15,000-20,000 characters), which may consist of a reasoned discussion of one or more of the lectures attended during the seminar, or a personal elaboration on one of the topics chosen in agreement with the instructors who will chair the sessions. The students' papers must include the author's first name, surname, student number and institutional e-mail.

Students will also be encouraged to present their work in one or more special sessions to be scheduled at the end of the meeting programme.

Teaching tools

Individual speakers may choose to use specific teaching tools (e.g. slides, electronic whiteboards, images or materials available online).

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office: https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Office hours

See the website of Raffaele Laudani