POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION IN THE MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY AGE

The course aims to provide students with the fundamental elements for understanding the forms political power has taken during the modern and contemporary eras, as well as the mechanisms—constitutional, institutional, and administrative—through which it is exercised within various European societies. Particular emphasis will be placed on themes such as democracy, citizenship, and rights within the Western political tradition, in order to provide insight into the actual development of channels for democratic participation in political power. Within this framework, the discussion of current socio-political issues will be encouraged as an exercise in critical thinking. The goal is to train individuals capable of fostering relational and personal development within communities, as well as the autonomy and social and professional integration of people across different stages of life. Furthermore, students will be equipped to promote practices of social integration, health education, and civic coexistence within organizational and community settings—including those characterized by conflict and complexity.

Expected Learning Outcomes – Dublin Descriptors

1. Knowledge and understanding

By the end of the course, students will have acquired adequate knowledge of the key processes regarding the formation, transformation, and crisis of European political institutions in the modern and contemporary eras. They will be able to understand the historical forms assumed by political power, the processes of modern state-building, the relationships between institutions and society, and the dynamics of political integration and disintegration, with particular attention to the specific cases examined during the course and to the imperial and Mediterranean dimensions.

2. Applying knowledge and understanding

Students will be able to apply the knowledge acquired to the analysis of historical-institutional phenomena and issues, situating them within their specific political, social, and cultural contexts. They will be able to use categories and concepts specific to the history of political institutions to interpret sources, texts, and case studies, identifying continuities, transformations, and differences among various institutional models.

3. Independent judgment

Students will develop the ability to formulate independent and critically grounded assessments of the historical-institutional processes studied. By comparing different historiographical interpretations, they will be able to critically examine concepts such as the State, sovereignty, power, empire, citizenship, rights, and belonging, distinguishing historical reconstruction from political and ideological interpretations.

4. Communication skills

Students will be able to articulate the main themes of the history of political institutions clearly and precisely, using appropriate historical, political, and institutional terminology. They will also be capable of presenting arguments—both orally and in writing—by coherently organizing the knowledge acquired and critically discussing the issues addressed during the course.

5. Learning skills

Students will acquire the methodological tools necessary to independently explore themes and issues related to the history of political institutions. They will be able to navigate scholarly literature, critically engage with new texts and case studies, and connect the knowledge acquired with other areas of historical, political, and social studies.

Lectures and seminars

basic knowledge of the main themes of modern history from the period of ocean navigation to the Napoleonic age

The course is designed with integrable modules.

1) The first module (5CFU) deals with the theme of law as a social structure and expression of collective mentalities in a comparative European key. Part of the course is dedicated to reflecting on how the Age of Enlightenment with its peculiar Humanism - substantiated by the discovery of freedom but also of man's individual responsibility - originally interpreted and transformed decisive aspects of the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from Montaigne to Galilei, the Scientific Revolution affirmed the need to freely seek the truth about natural phenomena through adequate empirical evidence against ipse dixit. With the crisis of the "European conscience", then, rationalism allowed the passage from a conception of Reason, strictly conceived as the casket containing the first principles, to a "method" Reason, that is, as a way to derive inductive rules from reality. Thus all aspects of life were subjected to the critical scrutiny of Reason: politics and forms of state, social organization, human history, the structure of knowledge.

2) The second module (1 CFU) explores the theme of the formation of European elites through the examination of the Grand Tour between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and, in particular, of a travel experience for women

written and term papers (to be agreed with the teacher exclusively for those attending the lessons)