Humanities
PhD

The Ph.D. in Humanities aims to train students in original and innovative basic and field scientific research, to prepare professionals for careers in research, teaching at the university level, covering leadership roles in social policy development and implementation, and new professions related to the multiple aspects that define the human.

During the Ph.D. program the student is expected to:

- acquire high-level skills through the in-depth study of one of the research areas included in the curricular program;
- acquire research and data analysis methodologies and techniques useful to their field of study
- design and carry out original research;
- engage in activities to communicate their results (e.g. through presentations at conferences and symposia and through scientific publications);
- write a thesis and discuss it orally at the end of the three years.

The Ph.D. also offers the opportunity to acquire specific knowledge and skills in advanced areas of research, combining the proposed teaching activities with the direct involvement of Ph.D. students in the development of project ideas and in the conduct and realization of research activities.
The Ph.D. program envisages the acquisition of transversal skills that facilitate the application, development, and transfer of the scientific knowledge of the specific course of study, so as to be functional both for research activities and for employment.
The internationalization objective is ensured by an experience abroad of at least 3 months and by the seminar activity of annually invited visiting professors. 

Curricula

1. COMMUNICATION SCIENCES AND DIGITAL CULTURE

The aim of the Communication Sciences and Digital Culture curriculum is to offer advanced training in the study of contemporary cultural and communication processes, focusing in particular on new digital cultures and technologies.
The curriculum proposes to provide Ph.D. students with theoretical and interdisciplinary research skills combining media and communication studies, internet studies, cultural studies also from a comparative perspective, performance studies, semiotic studies, cinema and television studies, and gender studies.
The Ph.D. students will acquire qualitative and quantitative methodological tools and will deal with innovative research methods oriented toward the changes in the digital society.
The course thus aims to prepare highly specialized figures in the analysis of audiences, media industries, media texts, consumer practices and imaginaries, public communication, and information, who are able to develop and enhance research work in academic, institutional, and corporate settings.

2. SCIENCES OF ANCIENT TEXT 

The Sciences of Ancient Text curriculum focuses on the study of literary texts in poetry and prose from ancient Greece, as well as on the study of the society and civilization that over time fostered and stimulated their production. Complementary to the supervised research work and to the cross-curricular teaching, the course provides disciplinary and specialized training that aims to develop and deepen the philological, linguistic, translating, metrical, and other technical skills of the doctoral student, as well as skills in the most recent trends and methods of literary criticism and close reading in relation to the ancient text. At the end of the course, students will be able to deal with the elaboration of a critical-literary essay, a historical-literary survey, or a proper critical edition with methodological rigor, adequate technical preparation, and awareness of the studies in the field.

3. CONTEMPORARY HISTORY 

The curriculum in Contemporary History develops the analysis of historical phenomena of medium and long duration on a national and international scale, through the categories of political, cultural, social, economic, and institutional history.
The aim of the Ph.D. program is to develop an aptitude for historical research, favoring research into contemporary history in its various aspects: global history, political and social history of Italy, Europe, and non-European countries; history of the Italian and European political system; history of political movements and parties; cultural history. Doctoral students will have to demonstrate that they have mastered the historical and historiographical debate and are able to develop research, including comparative research, through the in-depth study of significant case studies. By means of a specific background (bibliography, archive sources, printed sources, parliamentary sources, etc.) doctoral students will arrive at the end of the course with the draft of a final paper, capable of demonstrating the ability to move critically and consciously in the understanding of historical events, with the prospect of acquiring the tools to interpret even the complexity of the present time.

4. HUMAN SCIENCES

The curriculum in Human Sciences is characterized by a multidisciplinary approach that allows the experience of the individual to be analyzed from a threefold philosophical, pedagogical, and psychological perspective. The main objective of the curriculum concerns advanced theoretical and methodological training in research (basic, applied, and conceptual) with particular emphasis on the development of autonomous research skills and the possible applicative spin-offs declined according to the disciplinary contexts of reference.
The Ph.D. students must demonstrate a critical capacity in relation to the main methodological issues inherent to the subject area of the research project, but also to be able to contextualize the same critical issues in interdisciplinary terms.
The students' research project although anchored to the specificities (of objectives methodological and content) of a single discipline must therefore maintain an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging from the point of view of its framing and reflection with respect to the results achieved.

PhD students will do the following activities:

• study and theoretical research
• empirical research that includes the acquisition of the ability to:
  • build a research design
  • make the design operative
  • select the best methodology and survey techniques
  • detect data with quantitative or qualitative tools
  • processing and interpreting data,
  • write a research report
• tutoring activities and teaching activities
• writing reviews and working papers
• participation in conferences
• study stays abroad

Each curriculum path is organized in a series of courses, cycles of meetings, and seminars involving the active participation of Ph.D. students and the intervention of both internal and external lecturers of the University.
It is mandatory to acquire 60 CFU over a three-year period. Doctoral students may acquire 5 CFU by drawing on the structured training activities offered by other doctoral programs of the University or of any consortium universities (Art. 15(6) of the current Regulation on Doctoral Programmes).

Teaching Activities XXXVIII Cycle, Academic Year 2022/2023.

PhDs in Humanities will be able to enter the fields of highly specialised intellectual and scientific professions, general management of the state administration and humanitarian, cultural and scientific organisations of national and supranational interest, in particular in the fields of academic research, education, publishing, public and corporate communication.

In particular, on the basis of the skills learnt in the various curricula, they will be able to find professional outlets in the area of learning processes, the development and management of publishing projects or programmes, cultural activities, communication activities with specialisation on the Internet, and activities more specifically linked to cultural and multimedia journalism, to the educational sphere in the perspective of learning in the different ages of life (lifelong learning), to theoretical-empirical research on social, historical, philosophical problems, to empirical research in the field of clinical, developmental and neuroscientific psychology, and finally to the establishment of professionals who can work in the cultural heritage sector in museums, public and private institutions, foundations and associations.