Berlusconi: The Perfect Italian Ruler (Jirika Dylan Kitchen Nikoletopoulos)

In 1986 Fininvest bought the A.C. Milan soccer team and did what many thought was impossible. By finishing in 7th place in the lower of two leagues, Berlusconi completely changed the direction and mindset of the team. By bringing in new players and coaches, A.C. Milan became the most historically successful football club in Europe in less than 8 years. From 1986-1995 A.C. Milan won the Series A league five times, the Italian Supercoppa four times, the UEFA Champions League three times, The UEFA Super Cup three times, and the International Cup two times. Read more here, and news about Fiorentina written by Dylan here.

A Personal Experience Gone Public: How the Media Negatively Affects Students Studying Abroad (Taylor Fitzpatrick)

.... So delete the TripAdvisor application from your phone and stumble upon your own adventures. The time you spend chasing someone else’s fun, you could spend on your own. Stop running and participate in the slow life culture of Italy. Relax, sit, and sip your wine for an hour before asking for the check, because hey, in Italy, you can. 

Read the entire paper here

Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports: The Destructive Effects (Joanna Zecha)

Typically athletes use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to gain an advantage against their opponents and ensure that they are competing to the best of their ability. However, these actions are very serious, as they drastically impact the game. Players using PEDs receive an advantage, leaving other players who play fair and work hard in an unfair position. In addition it detracts from the clean image and the rules of the game. It has been perceived that PEDs are used less often in soccer than in other sports; however, cases in recent history prove otherwise. It is evident that perhaps it is not as prominent, but it still goes to show that it is a major issue in nearly every type of sport. Doping has a large societal impact as well. For one, it is a bad influence for the youth population because it promotes cheating and poor sportsmanship at an age when it is vital to teach the importance of such things. Also, just in general it makes the fans lose faith in their favorite athletes and clubs, which is extremely detrimental given how much influence sports have on the lives of it’s fan base. Sports are more than just a game for many people; they are a way of life and it gives people something to believe in. So if they become aware of people cheating, it drastically changes the image of the athlete and the sport especially when that athlete can be considered a hero. Read more…

The Positive and Negative side of Globalization: Glocalites and Distanceless (by Jaime Surace)

Globalization today is hindering the experiences we as people once cherished. Traveling and becoming enriched in new cultures and ideas is what a cosmopolitan person strives for, yet globalization has inadvertently played a role in obstructing this goal. People no longer need to go somewhere to experience something; they can simply research images of it on the internet. Read more... 

Women Versus the World: Discrimination in Sport (by Molly Byrne)

Throughout history, women have been discriminated against in many countries. Historically, women are frequently denied opportunities for participation in sports. Furthermore, in an effort to discourage women's participation in sports, societies often label female athletes negatively or interpret a woman's athletic participation as a source of gender role conflict (Schell 2000).  But over the years, there has been an effort for more equality between men and women. Some places have even passed laws forcing equality of women, like America. But, just because laws exist doesn’t mean there is less inequality. And, even though there have been some major legal changes in recent months, Italy is still suffering more than other places in terms of inequality. Read more...

The Media Frenzy of Amanda Knox (by Nathan Dines)

At the end of the first full week of classes in Florence, two of my friends and I decided to take a weekend trip and explore a new part of Italy. We did not go into the trip with anything more than two nights booked in two different hostels and an itinerary proposed by my host parents to visit three nearby cities: Perugia, Assisi, and Lake Trasimeno. The trip turned out to be one of the most fun and culturally rewarding of the semester, yet it was my short stay in Perugia that inspired me to focus this paper on Amanda Knox. Before arriving in Florence, I had never heard of Amanda Knox. Maybe it was because I did not live in Washington or simply because it never came up at school, but hearing about her story was fascinating. Here was a girl who left the States during her junior year, just like most everyone else in the Gonzaga in Florence program, yet the similarities from that point stop almost immediately. Knox’s predicament of facing a murder charge, being humiliated by the European media, being convicted of the murder of her roommate, serving four years in a foreign jail thousands of miles from home, and finally given a chance for appeal and receiving an acquittal of those murder charges is almost impossible to imagine, let alone accept as reality. Read more…

Italian Cultural Attitudes toward Homosexuality in an Age of Globalization (by Patrick Noonan)

In a heteronormative world, the narrative of a sexual dissident can be comparatively characterized as that of a traveler. The cultural norms, attitudes and expectations threaten to be anything but familiar. A heterosexual hegemony challenges the perceived other to adapt and acculturate in a social milieu that may or may not value their presence in society. In society’s gravest failings, a heterosexist authority reduces this traveler to a marginalized role suffered by that of a vagabond. In society’s most honorable accomplishments, a heteronormative culture becomes self-conscious and the social norms of the past are deconstructed to make a home for the weary traveler. With any hope, the weary traveler of the past will be the prosperous cosmopolitan of the future. Italy has been both a gracious and crude host over time. Cultural attitudes in Italy’s history have at times appeared as temperamental as the winds that brought prosperity and prevalence to the peninsula’s ports. Even before considering the “anxieties of anachronism”, one can at least acknowledge the possible acceptable existence of homosexuality in ancient Rome and the Renaissance. In search of an equilibrium echoing justice, contemporary society turns to the promising stabilizer of globalization. Despite its limitations, globalization offers an opportunity for social consciousness and change. Read more...