Boston College Summer School

June 4 – June 29, 2018

Globalization, Culture and Ethics; satisfies cultural diversity requirement
Prof. Richard Keeley, Carroll School of Management

The emphasis of this course is on globalization and its consequences for moral reasoning; nations and transnational corporations and issues of governance and accountability; and emerging issues stemming from information and communications technology when these conflict with state purposes. Venetian history, practices and places will be the case study.

Trade made Venice the global city of its heyday and recent theoreticians have pointed to the restriction of access to the market as leading to its decline. Cultures—East and West, Roman and Venetian—met and clashed in Venice and on the sea but cultures were also in dialogue, witness the splendors of San Marco. Business and government worked out relations sometimes complementary, sometimes competitive. Each of these sets of themes has its parallel in the current discussions of globalization, ethics and culture.

Learning outcomes
A student will:
_Develop a good, general knowledge of the history of Venice;
_Appreciate the historical dimensions of globalization;
_Identify ethical challenges posed to contemporary practice of business and investigate strategies and policies responding thereto;
_Strengthen abilities to analyze difficult business problems and present them before a general audience
_Create, in collaboration with classmates, a study of business and culture within a Venetian sestiere

“The Imaginary City: Why Writers Love Venice”
Professor Kevin Newmark, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences

This course will meet for four weeks, Monday to Thursday, usually from 9:00 to 12:00 at VIU. Alternative scheduling will occur in conjunction with on-site visits in or near Venice proper. The course is organized into four successive sections, each corresponding to a unit composed of interconnecting strands, canals, or mosaic tesserae, which join literature, cinema, philosophy, art history, and on-site exploring. The four main topics will feature literary texts by Joseph Brodsky, Thomas Mann, Henry James, and Marcel Proust. They are: Liquid Beauty, Paradoxes of Beauty, Inversions of Beauty, and Resurrections of Beauty.
Class attendance is mandatory. Students will be evaluated on the basis of regular participation, one formal oral presentation, and both short and medium length writing assignments.